EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE - PART TWO -
by Starskylicious
Summary: A story of hurt, silence with a glimpse of hope and a promise of a future.


**ACT 6 – ADRIFT -**

"There you have! The entire file, hotshot!" She frowned; Starsky peeked his head through the door and looked into her Office. He looked burnt out actually. "Well, not so hot, I guess! What's the matter, honey? Are you feeling okay? Didn't figure out on the phone that you looked so wasted! Come on, come on, take a seat". She waved her hand at him, inviting him, accompanying. "What's going on Starsky? You're a bit shaken, good-looking… You actually look sick!" She shook her head, annoyed. "Hey, bad news already or something new that is it wrong?"

He sat, trembling.

He was pale with exhaustion and Minnie attempted, by all means, to fathom his tiredness behind his labored breathing that was very disturbing.

He started coughing again.

Her concern was evident since his wheezing seemed to be endless, and he looked scruffy, spent and jaded; his eyes were hard to read; his bleary, tear-soaked eyes were baffling.

They weren't like Starsky's.

"Naw, Nothing. The same thing already, yeah. I'm okay, just this coughing that's still nagging me! See? I climbed two stories and, look at me! I shouldn't have! feel like my chest's gonna explode! I don't know what's going on with me today!" he shook his head cluelessly. She saw that he couldn't find the words. That he moved his hands while trying to inflate his lungs, searching for the proper words to say, for the gulp of the air to fill his chest. "I guess I need to rest, that's all. I ain't feeling so sound lately." Starsky said seeking approval from Minnie, he just smiled and raised his pitched eyes toward her. "I suppose this whole damn case's getting on my nerves. I can't believe that we can't find this wacko; I mean he did it six times!" She offered him a glass of water; he drank, "Thanks!" he continued, "The more will be needed until we find him, Minnie?" he finished saying.

"Yeah, I know that you're pissed off; we all are." She sighed and then, ducked by his chair and stroked his leg with her left hand and his curls with her right. She wanted to comfort him, gave him what little support she could. She dug her eyes into his handsome, masculine face, always transparent and yet so unreadable that day.

Starsky could be like a stuffed animal sometimes, he usually surrendered to the caresses. When he let his guard down he could be very tender as if his tough cop persona was entirely extinguished, she just adored that in him!

"This nut's sinister! I agree with you, but you can't let this destroy you, Starsky!" She said openly, her eyes wide open trying to seek some comprehension from him. "It's not just you the one who has a saying in this, I mean the whole Department must take its responsibility, not just you! Besides, look at you, boy! You seem quite sick! You should go home right now, you ain't no good like this to anyone, especially yourself! Patterson has been hospitalized, he still is! and he even didn't look like you!" She said reflexively. "I better call your extension and make Hutch come here and take you home."

She was worried and was about to begin her mother hen mood when at the same instant the door opened, and Hutch came in.

"May I? Interrupt something? Starsky! I've been looking for you! I thought you could be here. I tried to reach you by phone, but the line was busy. Hi, Minnie!" The blond detective said without looking at her.

"Hi Hutch, It's good to see you. I've been talking to Starsky on the phone; that's why maybe you couldn't…" She stopped at half sentence since she realized he wasn't paying any attention to her; that Hutch's eyes were still fixed on those of his partner.

She realized that he didn't listen, couldn't hear at all, so she rose and shook her head while he heedless ignored her and continued talking to Starsky, just to him.

That awkward feeling she always experienced in their presence, kind of interrupting their telepathic communication.

"You okay?" He went on, "you had me all worried sick out there, pal! You rushed out of the office... I... I just couldn't find you anywhere."

"I'm okay, buddy" Starsky winced and sighed, and reached for his arm, and a sign of relief showed on Hutch's face in reply. "I'm just following a couple of hunches. I needed Minnie here to sort a few things out." The brunet smiled at the policewoman, and she smiled back and shook his arm.

"And you found out something new?" Hutch asked softly with a mixture of curiosity and tenderness.

Starsky stood up, all sign of distress, discomfort or anguish was gone, miraculously.

Minnie stayed speechless, the bond between these two was incredible. Starsky could be just like that only with his friend. She remembered him and the days after he was back from Gunther, the first time she saw Starsky after the atrocity. He made such an effort not to show to his partner how weak and fragile he was, and his partner made the same effort not to show him how scared he felt, it was overwhelming.

They showed each other strength and health where there was only weakness and sickness.

They were both devastated, scared and ill.

She remembered those hard times they had made such an effort to let the other feel okay. It was poignant.

"Well, maybe. Let's just say that I'm on my way," he shrugged, "but I need more time to figure some things out, I'm sure we're skipping something, Hutch. That something's missing!"

"Yeah... yeah, we're in such a hurry and always running behind him, quite unlikely and...!"

"… and disgusting," Starsky said without a flinch and snapped his fingers, hesitating.

He turned to look at Minnie, he winked and gave her an accomplice's eye, reminding the woman about her silence. He shushed her with his left index in his mouth while giving his back to Hutch, and he went on.

"Anyway thanks, Minnie, for ev-ery-thing," he said echoing her words with that gorgeous, stunning smile of his that she so cherished.

"You're welcome" she couldn't help but blush; he was a very special man indeed for her.

And Hutch noticed and smiled until he said, "Thanks, Minnie! And Starsk, we better get outta here as soon as possible, Huggy's waiting for us. Maybe he's got something."

They left the Office, and Minnie felt a premonition. She should have betrayed Starsky, she should have talked to Hutch, she was sure.

It was a strange feeling, but for a fleeting moment, as they burst out of her Office, she felt the urge to run behind the blond and stop him and tell him what had happened; that Starsky was so distraught and feeling so sick.

Warn him. Nevertheless, something bigger stopped her. It was weird, some kind of a supernatural force. Or perhaps it was the belief that Starsky would do, that he was invincible and always came the victor or the need to make it unreal. She didn't know. She felt that something was going on, and she didn't do anything about it. She even could tell that for one second, Hutch hesitated whether he'd use the stairs or not, too.

As if he could know.

But then, she realized it was just her imagination.

Hutch didn't know what had happened before.

And he wouldn't ever find out if it came to Starsky to prevent it from happening either.

For the sake of all of them, their own momentary relief, the brunet chose the stairs.

And the blond man didn't suspect a thing.

She never imagined that her little relief was going to be so brief.

*******************S&H*********************

"Who wants to talk to us? Huggy's called?" Starsky asked scornfully.

"One such Leon. He's waiting for us at The Pits at five sharp. We don't know who he is, neither Huggy indeed; he said Dobey, that the guy's got some fresh info about our man. Guess we can't miss the opportunity, can we?" an awkward silence surrounded the men, "and… I've been thinking, buddy, since it's been a hard day already, maybe…" Hutch made a face, "Maybe we can spring outta here right now, and don't get back to the Station for today. We can stay at Huggy's, play some pool, some chicks", he winked to Starsky, "you know, grab a few beers." He smiled and timidly offered, "Whaddaya think?"

"Oh, huh… Well, I'm sorry Hutch, but I'm a little bit under the weather today you know, I – uh - I don't know if I'm up to one night out. I should better hit the sack early, relax a little, and take the time to decipher this looney." He chuckled, "Besides Sam's coming to the station anytime now. I've already talked to him on the phone. So I have to stay here, but… maybe you can still go to Huggy's. Alone? And let's see what he's got for us! Then you can tell me, later" He raised his eyebrows.

"Oh come on, man! Drop the act, will ya? You're trying to get rid of me again, aren't you? Are you avoiding me, asking me to leave? Leave you alone? I'm so sick of this! What's going on, Starsky? You angry with me? Did I do something wrong?" the blonde-haired man said flustered.

"Oh, come on! I ain't trying to get rid of you, buddy! I've already talked to Sam, and he's coming to the Station right now. I'm telling you; that's the reason I can't leave. I have to talk to him; I need… oh, come on!"

Starsky's eyes were so full of tenderness that intoxicated Hutch with pleasure like always.

Starsky's eyes had that power over him.

They were the reason Hutch felt so loved and cared. Because of that look, he could trust his partner with all the answers to life for him, though something was missing, unrecognizable, lately; that same look, also, let Hutch knew for sure that he was not the cause of his partner's discomfort, that something else was going on. His friend was hiding something, and that enraged him. But then, what else could he do? He would let Starsky be, after all, he couldn't deny anything to his partner.

The brunet winked his eye at his friend again, reassuringly, stretched his hand to Hutch and smiled sweetly, he shook his head and with all the tenderness he could muster he said softly. "Nothing Hutch, nothing's happening. I just - I need to talk to Sam that's all, and you better go to Huggy's. Maybe there's something important with this "Leon." I can't stay at both places at the same time, neither can you, that's all, but we are two and the same, and we can both be at two places at the same time, can't we? Me and thee, like always buddy, okay? That's our edge."

Hutch opened his eyes with astonishment even with disbelief raising a quizzical eyebrow at Starsky's logic. He felt like his partner was mocking him, sweet talking him. Sometimes, the brunet's behavior made him feel so aggravated that he didn't know what to do. Sometimes he felt that Starsky was pulling his leg; but he missed his partner, he was so impatient to stay with him; share with him again and know what was happening.

Fix it, in case it needed to be restored and take care of him.

"_Or maybe?"_ He didn't know, sometimes he also wondered whether he would be jealous of Sam. "_Would that be?"_ Hutch thought, confused.

The fact was that he just couldn't help but feeling worried and irksome about everything that was happening lately so, he went for more, and decided to push his partner trying to provoke a reaction in him; something, to make him angry, or force him to say or do something, anything. To change the course of things and stop feeling so ignored, whatever it takes to feel safe and confident again.

In fact, Hutch was exasperated; he thought he could burn in Starsky's words while he was saying those words the way in which Starsky insisted on saying them so elusively. He was sure the brunet wanted to avoid him. He could feel it vividly, and he wanted no more. He was losing his patience, Starsky kept making trivial excuses, and he could not stand his behavior anymore.

He chose to attack in response to such apathy.

"You, dummy! Why don't you get that stupid look of yours out of your ugly mug, uh? Look..." Hutch couldn't help the excessive overflow and pointed him with his blaming finger, "you gave me the heebie-jeebies in the stairs today at my place, and you know it damn well! Then again, you disappeared for almost one hour, right here in the Station and when I found you at Minnie's, you were all mysterious with her, "_Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong,"_ he quoted his partner mockingly, "why don't you just tell me what's going on actually, Starsky! You're always shutting me down!" Hutch was as enraged as Starsky had never seen him.

"Hutch, hey…" the brunet said puzzled, "I ain't shutting you down. I told you I'm tired, and I need to talk to Sam that's all! Today, in the morning? It was just a fit of coughing. Minnie told me that there's a bug going around here at the station, you know? That's all!" He cast sheep eyes to him and changed his strategy trying to convince his partner about his plan. "Hey, I thought you can come over to my place after Huggy's, pick some burritos from El Cholo; we can even watch TV together too. There's this - this documentary about the Sixers, in which Big Mo and Magic are gonna be. It's on ESPN I guess. We can watch it together. Come on, will ya? Will you come over to my place, later with the burritos? To see the documentary? Humor me, blintz!"

Starsky disarmed him, like always, and Hutch wasn't able to fight him anymore.

He gave a subtle nod before grabbing his jacket, and he disappeared through the doors, resigned.

"Okay, El Cholo it'll be." the blond cop said, "_After all, I could always ask Sam what was going on with him, later," _he thought. He was going to ask the doctor, the reasons his partner looked like he was fading away and avoiding him. "_Yeah, Sam will tell me, later." _The man told himself.

*******************S&H*********************

One and a half hour later, when Sam entered the Squad room, Starsky was there, clung to his chair. All the files and records that Minnie had given him were scattered over his desk disorderly… Rare in him. He was scribbling notes, erratically. He knew for sure that there were more to those assassinations than the not so coincidental fact that all the victims were named David, but the effort was taking its toll.

He was tired.

He felt like he was slowly disintegrating, his insides were being shattered. He was fading in his fatigue; he had neither eaten nor drunk anything all day.

He was deteriorating.

He needed to talk to Sam; he needed to tell him how sick he was for the last two weeks at least. That it had started more than one month ago, and that he was feeling worse and worse every passing day.

He was worried because he couldn't breathe, and he couldn't stand it anymore.

He was hurting so much, and he was scared.

"Hi Starsky, I'm sorry I'm this late, you know the Funny Farm… It can be so demanding sometimes." When Sam greeted him, Starsky could barely lift his head from his notes. Dramatically, in doing so he felt frightfully dizzy, and that simple movement terrorized him. His eyes were unfocused, and he believed that he was going to be sick, and faint anytime. Sam, was ashamed and absorbed in his worries; he didn't realize or looked at him, either. "I heard the details on the radio," Ressler went on, without noticing his friend's lack of reaction. The doctor turned on the percolator and waited for the coffee to heat. All the time he was giving his back to Starsky. He started pouring himself a cup of the brown liquid and continued talking, reflexively. "Such a young man! I heard he was a scientist, looks like he was working for the government, developing something… oh! I don't know what it is, but I was wondering if that could be a clue? I mean his connection with the government and this "Star Wars" thing Reagan keeps talking about, you know? So maybe this isn't something related to Parry. Maybe it's not him this time." he shook his head.

The doctor tried to convince himself and Starsky, but the brunet was hardly listening to what his friend's theory was. He couldn't pay attention, he attempted to speak but was unable to utter a sound. His tongue was so swollen that he just couldn't.

"Yeah." Sam was still where the coffee pot was.

Starsky was still sitting at his desk, behind him.

The doctor was looking down at the floor, feeling sorry for himself, for the victim, for everyone, so he continued talking… "Guess this doesn't help your state of mind either. I mean, our conversation, Starsky..." Sam shrugged and frowned. "What can I say? I feel guilty too buddy, I'm sorry I couldn't prevent it… I, I don't know what to do anymore." Sam turned around and realized that Starsky had started to get up and he was panting. He realized that he seemingly couldn't focus.

"Hey buddy, you okay?"

Suddenly the light became brighter and brighter, and Starsky's ears started ringing so loud that he couldn't take it anymore.

"Hey…"

That was the only word the brunet could voice though it was barely a whisper. Starsky felt deflated. He knew that Sam was talking to him, but he no longer could hear anything of what he was saying, neither understand.

The ringing was louder and obnoxious.

He tried fiercely to keep his eyes opened just to find the meaning of what Sam was saying with his far, muffled words. He saw the movement of his mouth, everything, like in a movie that was being played in the distance but it was distorted and in slow motion. The doc's words were thick, broad and slow. He felt asphyxiated, agitated, he could hardly breathe, barely focus. The ringing was extreme and acute; the light was bright, piercing, and he was stunned.

"Starsky, here! Please buddy, hey… What's going on? Respond to me."

The effort was considerable, and he was cold, and he needed to be warm.

Starsky attempted to get up again to grab his jacket and leave, and he stumbled, and he tried again, and again, and again... he intended to stand.

One more time, and again and again and he failed.

"Starsky! Oh My God!"

He began to melt, gradually.

He lost his stare, slowly and with no intent; his eyes rolled into his head until he lost consciousness completely too.

Starsky fainted.

Sam's useless arm didn't succeed in getting to him in time, and he hurt his forehead with the tip of his desk, just a small cut in his collapse.

A thin trail of blood painted his face.

"Oh, God!" Sam said.

So little, so tiny, so soft, so weak.

"Starsky…"

His fall looked in slow motion.

Like a feather, adrift in the wind.

"Starskyyyyy!"

**ACT 7** **\- SACCO AND VANZETTI -**

"Hiya, good evening Butch, where's The Kid?" Huggy waved Hutch hello with his florid manners and started pouring the booze.

"You still calling us names? After all these years? Never get tired of doing it?" Hutch made a face, disapproving. He sat wearily on a stool and looked around. Huggy opened his eyes in disbelief and expectation, undoubtedly the blond-haired man's mood was not in sync. They stayed that way for some time, Huggy expecting his reaction patiently until Hutch added dejectedly, "I feel more like Sacco and Vanzetti lately" he said with a bitter expression. He rasped his throat and scratched his hair, frowning.

"Sacco and Vanzetti? How's that? Oh, yeah! Because of your anarchy?" Huggy put his right pinkie into his mouth, looking straight into Hutch's face, defiantly "You and your partner have always been more a pair of outlaws than cops, yeah right. That's your real nature!" Huggy said naughtily.

"No. Not because of the anarchy, Hug!" the blond-haired man said flustered.

"Okay, so maybe because of the autarchy, whatever. Stop this malarkey man, or is it Starsky I'm talking to?" Huggy laughed at his pun, trying to make Hutch laugh too, but he couldn't. "Hey, what?" he finished.

"I feel like Sacco and Vanzetti because of the nihilism," Hutch said, still flat… "I feel like empty, Huggy."

Huggy could see how concerned his friend was, his mood was far from those days when being next to him was a guarantee of smooth and good times.

"So fill yourself! Here, take this" He offered him a bowl of peanuts. "Grab the Menu, blondie."

"Man…" Hutch sighed, the worry was all imprinted on his face, and then he made a pause.

Huggy was also concerned; this was the second week in a row that Hutch looked so withdrawn, that he seemed so depressed. And alone.

"What's going on Hutch? Tell me. Is it something about Starsky?"

He didn't answer Huggy's question, pretended to ignore him.

"Oh yeah, Curly it is!" Huggy responded likewise and continued "Hutch, where's Starsky? what about him this time, why is he not here?" the thin man insisted.

"Still at the Precinct, keeping the ball rolling. Please, Huggy, cut to the chase, you were searching for us. What's the word on the street, who's this Leon?" He said sternly and closed the menu with fierceness.

He didn't want to talk, apparently.

"Hey pal, cool your jets, will ya? What's the rush for? Take a sip. C'mon, C'mon!" he offered the pint glass. Huggy kept watching his friend's measured and deflated movements. Hutch looked controlled and positively uncomfortable, also impatient, so he answered him. "Our fella's at that booth over there waiting for you, and he ain't going anywhere, so what's the rush for?" He nodded to the rear end of the bar, "I thought that I'd better give you a heads up on him. Besides, the way you look right now, I mean..." Huggy shook his head "maybe you can chill up a bit, Blondie. Relax your face and change that vacant expression in that pan of yours." He winked to Hutch, who cast eyes upon him. Puppy eyes to him. Huggy smiled with tenderness "Hey, Captain America, don't give me that look. You're still comely symmetrical, so, please? don't take it on me!"

"Oh come on, Huggy!" He didn't want to play games; that was a given.

"Really! You're still pretty, Hutch, but you look out of place. Lopsided. Perhaps you should blame your five o'clock shadow, pal, it ain't helping either! You look like a low life crook more than the fuzz today! But I know that's not it, is it?. Hutchie, hey! And I can also tell, you didn't eat anything tasty all day, I mean, come on, don't fool around with me. I know you from years! What's crackin', cowboy?"

"Same thing already." Hutch looked apprehensive and anxious and utterly sad.

"Oh, I should've known! Like I've said, your better half! You can't cast a spell on him again I guess, can you?"

Suddenly, they heard screams coming from the kitchen. Huggy turned his head towards the source of the scandal and frowned. He opened his eyes, wondering. The blond moved his head, authorizing Huggy to go, "Go. I'll stay here." Hutch mumbled.

"Yeah," Huggy said, "I'll be right back. Lemme see what's going on. Our conversation didn't finish yet, buddy boy," he pointed to him with his finger as a warning.

Hutch smiled.

Ten minutes later, Huggy and Anita came into the saloon again; she was twisting her apron with both her hands, hysterically. She looked agitated; Huggy was trying to console her.

"I'm telling you Huggy. I won't come back if this man's still working here. He's sick, and he's crazy. I can't stand this anymore. I feel like he's some... pervert." She made a gesture of disgust "He makes me so sick!"

"You don't have to be worried anymore. I fired him. Just now. Okay? Okay? Now you go and keep the work going, please? I'm talking with Hutch here, uh?" He made a face to her, and she understood. There would be enough time to discuss this later.

She nodded, still worried, "Hi, Hutch," she said, quite ashamed and raising her eyes to the cop. Hutch nodded, trying to be discreet.

"Go, go," Huggy said and then he patted her on her butt. "We'll talk later, okay?" She sighed and then she left. Huggy followed her with his eyes.

"What's going on, Hug?" Hutch asked while sipping his beer.

"Oh! It's nothing! I hired this man… Three months ago. He doesn't seem to fit with my crew. I've got rid of him, just now. He was a bit pushy with the boys, you understand?"

Huggy shook his head. "It seems you can't trust people anymore, Hutch. He complained about his work all the time and had self-bestowed some rights that didn't belong to him. Today Anita found that he was searching for something in my stuff at the Office, thoroughly, like a damn Illya Kuryakin. Anyway, I weeded him out. Totally eradicated." He said theatrically.

Hutch chuckled and dropped the beer, involuntarily.

"You, klutz! Curly's right, you can be a clumsy creature when he's not around!" Huggy said. The lanky black man took a cloth to clean up the table of what had been poured.

"That's what I'm afraid of", Hutch said reflexively.

"What?" the bizarre man said completely lost.

Hutch sighed sadly. "What kind of a man could I be without him around, Hug?" At the time the flaxen-haired man looked visibly broken.

"Hey, you scare me blondie"

"I am scared, too" and then Hutch didn't say anything else.

Huggy looked at him but he could no longer stand the silence so he asked him again, "Anyway, we were talking, weren't we?" the thin man smiled and made a pause before he started again "Why are you looking so sick and troubled, uh? Come on, spill your beans, what's going on with Starsky?"

Huggy realized that his friend needed to talk to someone, to vent.

Hutch shrugged. "I wish I know. I really wish I know, but I don't, maybe… Yes, yes I'm worried, Hug. I've got this nagging feeling; this case is," He stammered and his lips tightened, helplessly. He had no answers, but lots of questions. He shook his head, "And it seems like... Starsky and me, as if we've lost our communication lately and we can't stay in tune". The blond voiced his fears, "Sometimes he's like a loose cannon and I'm always flying right off the handle for nothing. He disappears and then reappears but mostly he is an M.I.A., and he's been like that for more than two weeks already" he inflated his lungs."I beg I shout… But he doesn't seem to care anymore." He shook his head troubled. "This is a new Starsky, Hug, one I've never known in my whole life before not even when we had that Kira's mess."

"And what about that bitch? You mean, she...?" Huggy sounded puzzled.

"No! No, nothing about her. I mean I feel him so far away from me, and we're having so many disagreements that this situation reminds me of those days, even worst. I'm telling you since we worked together, I never felt so alone. I think that he's hiding something…" he said concernedly.

"To you?" Huggy interrupted him, "You mean he's hiding something to you? Come on! It can't be, and you know it. That's not like him. If he's hiding something to you, I'm sure as hell that he's hiding it to himself, too. It sure has to do with this assignment, buddy, this killer… You know Starsky, man; the way he is, so fanatic sometimes."

Hutch came to think about it lots of times.

That was the way it should be, "_yeah, everything that's happening's because of the job, surely regarding the long time this wacko's been around and we couldn't catch him… Yeah, naturally, the job; perhaps Huggy's right! Parry must be the reason",_ he thought, in fact, he was their worst and longest case so far.

It sure was the job.

"Anyway," Huggy said trying to encourage him, "If you can't stand the heat, get outta the kitchen, Hutch!" He wiggled like a peacock and played with his suit's lapel, "You want me to try to find out? I mean, maybe he relaxes with me, and tells me." He winked and graciously offered.

"And what would you do? what that could be, Hug?" Hutch said in disbelief.

"Well, I don't know, but I know my Starsky bro. I know him for a while back, Blondie! Definitely, it must be something that he knows and at the same time that he knows will bother you, and that's why he's not sharing!" Huggy shrugged wondering. "I mean, maybe he's actually in protective mode! maybe he is more open to me? Besides, '_many hands make light work, and it's not the end of the world'_ Lemme see what I can do, what I can find out. It's been a long time since Curly doesn't hit this beautiful establishment. So perhaps I can talk to him, talk some sense into him and see what's going on," he winked.

"Yeah, but don't tell him that I asked you to, okay? Just find out what's going on," Hutch sighed, he was not entirely convinced though he had no other choice.

"You can count on that; anything I can do to help Batman and Robin, it's on the house."

"I'll appreciate it, Alfred," Hutch chuckled and then sighed again, shook his head. "I'm worried about him, kinda scared. What if this has something to do with his health? I mean he's not taking good care of him, you know how he is." The blonde-haired man retained a sigh and grimaced. "Sometimes he forgets he's a survivor, Hug, and that scares the hell outta me! If something happens to him I - I won't be able to stand it again. I won't be able to face it again!" Hutch shook his head, totally spent.

"Hey! What are you talking about now? Nothing will happen; Starsky's as strong as a bull, buddy. He proved it many times!" Huggy said convinced.

"Yeah, I know, after everything that he's been through… wouldn't have survived myself, but..." he tried to reasoning.

"No buts! For this same token, Hutch. Nobody's as sturdy as he is. Nobody can compare to him. You know, I know. Nobody can. Nothing's happening to him; nothing's wrong, I'm sure of that."

"I wish I have the same certainty." Hutch was worried. Nobody could deny that Starsky was a tough man, but the images of earlier in the morning replayed in his head like an old film, "You should have seen him this morning." he finished.

"What? What happened this morning?" Huggy asked, curious.

"Nothing, he scared me. He started coughing when we were leaving my place and never seemed to end. I'm telling you, Hug; he isn't taking good care of him. I keep on telling him, and he just…" he didn't end the sentence and full of pain ended saying. "You know, this time, if something happens to him I wouldn't be up to it again."

"You and your Florence Nightingale's destiny, buddy. If he gets one cold, you'll be there cooling him and spooning him my chicken soup in his very mouth, come on!; you'll always be there for him, by his side. If anything happens to him…" the black slim man quoted him, reflexively. "Come on, Hutch! Who helped him come back after Gunther? Uh? How many times did you do it before? I'm sure you will if that's the case, but I'm also sure that nothing's wrong with Starsky, It can't be! so you don't need to worry."

Huggy tried to sound encouraging; it was a long time since he didn't see Starsky because the brunet was obsessed with the case, and he wasn't going to The Pits, but...

"Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe this is nothing related to his health, yeah... But, what if this is something worse than that? Because something's wrong between us and he doesn't give a shit. He doesn't listen to me; he keeps avoiding me, making silly excuses. May I ask you one question?" Hutch said convincingly.

"Shoot," Huggy said, solicitous.

"Is he here with me now?" The blond-haired man raised his eyebrows in one big question.

Huggy stayed silent, he didn't know what to answer, so he didn't.

"No, he isn't, you see? And why? Do you have an answer to that question? Maybe he doesn't care of me anymore" Hutch said and shrugged.

Huggy sighed a deep mouthful of air.

"Well, why don't you try thinking that, maybe he's got something better to do at this precise moment instead of being here?" Huggy raised his eyebrows.

"Everything's better than me lately…" Hutch said bereft and dejected.

"Maybe or maybe not. Or perhaps some lady? You're not a match for that, blondie! Whaddaya think? I think it's time for our friend to get back in business" Huggy shrugged intriguingly.

Hutch frowned; he hadn't thought about that possibility at all.

After Gunther, they had been together all the time and barely apart.

After Gunther, neither Starsky nor Hutch had been in any serious relationship with any woman.

"_What if Huggy was right? Maybe he needs some space"_, Hutch thought.

After Gunther, Hutch hadn't been interested in anyone but in his wayward buddy.

Starsky was his primary concern, and he devoted his life to his friend.

"_But what about Starsky?"_ he asked himself.

The brunet was just another story around, another more complicated story.

Gunther had taken away from him more than his lung's capacity.

He had destroyed his upbeat demeanor, had sprayed his confidence; those parts of his that were so loveable.

"_Yeah, maybe he started to get his life back. After all, Starsky has always been a ladies' man", _he thought. He could take it, but still, "_why doesn't he share with me his feelings?" _the blond-haired man concluded, and though still didn't like it, he was going to give that possibility a chance. However painful it could be for him being apart, he could understand that maybe that was the reason his partner had shut him down constantly during the past days, and he calmed down a bit.

"Well, it could be a good explanation as any. Yeah," he smiled, relieved. "Okay, we'll see, but tell me if you can find out anything, right?"

Huggy nodded pleased at his suggestion.

"Anyway, down to the nitty-gritty, Hug. This Leon, what about him?" Hutch's urgency returned, took a glimpse at his waist watch; Starsky was waiting for him, so he decided to end the conversation.

"Okay Dokey Smokey" Huggy realized that Hutch didn't want to keep talking about their mutual friend. "I got it! I'll do the dirty job and take care of Mr. Popularity later", he winked his eye to the blond and Hutch chuckled. Huggy raised his hands and started telling him everything he knew about Leon. "He's a librarian at Central Library. The man's no scum, Hutch. He's just a stoolie trying to make his hustle, some fresh bread you know. He has a little boy, two years, and the county salary. Well, you know how it works" he looked straight into Hutch's eyes seeking for complicity.

"So he wants money?" he asked, straight.

"Well, like everybody else wants it. The fact is that the dude watched Parry's sketched portrait on the TV, and he knows the fuzz is trying to gather information about the killer, so he contacted my cousin Eleazar. The man has some hot data about this _'supposedly' _Parry and my cousin put the spell on me."

"And what does he know?" Hutch peered into the distance.

"Well, the exact day and time the allegedly _'crazy Madoc'_ would go to the Library, by all accounts… That would be enough? Whaddaya think? Looks like he's some kind of a Metropolitan freak, and this Leon's sure that he's met him at the Library" said pompously.

"A metropolitan freak? What's that?" Hutch asked curiously.

"Leon says that this man's kinda obsessed with the whole damn LA County and its Bay City Metropolitan Police. He says that he keeps going to the Library to grab some info about the city, its places of interest, the archives of all the City's Journals and such things. All the public files of the metro police, too… Believe me, Hutch, this Leon's interesting stuff, he has top-notch info."

"So you say that this man can give me some information of interest regarding the tastes in the reading of any given citizen?" He said mockingly and with absolute disdain.

"Well, not any given citizen. The killer! Why don't you give him the opportunity to make a difference?" They both exchanged glances. Huggy went on, "Yes, Goldilocks! You won't believe what you can find out investigating the things people read…"

"I know that Hug, but what I can hardly believe is that our killer, THE Madoc Parry borrows books from the Public Library" He was astonished and perplexed.

"Well, perhaps he did screw up big time this time! Yeah, just like that!"

Hutch chuckled, couldn't believe this would be that simple.

It's been more than one year that they were trying to find Parry and all of a sudden; the info was so easy to find. He rose and got straight to the tiny man who was sitting in the further booth, the one usually reserved for Starsky and him. For some reason, the man inspired him certitude… "_that's a good hunch"_, he thought.

***************** S&H****************

"... and you're telling me that this man's resemblance to the sketched one you've seen on the media is 100%?"

"Positive, 100%," Leon said without hesitation.

Yeah, he was right; the skinny and fragile man sounded credible.

"And when was the last time he went to Central Library?" Hutch looked more and more interested in the snitch's information.

"Last Friday. He asked me for Koreatown's updated Roadmap, you know, the Ambassador, Kennedy's assault… all that stuff, and then, well, I watched it on the tube."

Leon made a gesture with his eyes, a gesture of disgust. "And this is the third time in a row this man appeared to ask some info about the places where the murders had occurred. So I have a feeling that this is our guy, detective, well, your guy I mean. I'm sure. Besides, he keeps on reading strange books about medicine and the way he asks for them… I don't know. He gives me the creeps every time I talk to him." Leon looked very disgusted.

"Okay Leon, but now you better tell me. If this is the third time he came to ask you to lend him the info related to the places of the killings, why did you wait this long to call us?"

"Man, I'm not the suspect here. I'm telling you what I see; that's all. I've never made the connection before. Why? I don't know why? I ain't no detective. You are."

Hutch was very pensive. It had sense, what the man was saying had a lot of sense.

"Okay. You're right, and I'm sorry. And how often does he go to the Library?" the cop asked increasingly curious.

"Well, you're asking too many questions, detective, and I ain't see anything coming in return…" Leon shrugged. He waited one second for Hutch's reaction, and when none came, he continued, dejected and even more directly. "As a matter of fact, I can't remember exactly but… Ehhh, but I guess that in exchange for a big wad of money and some other guarantees, you can consider offering me, I could say when he should return the last book he borrowed. Must return it, in fact, that… If you're interested, of course. Believe it or not, he's a very very punctual and responsible citizen."

"I AM interested, but what those other guarantees might be?"

Hutch was starting to get nervous; he gave his most defiant look. That one that no one but he could convey. The look that made him look menacing and scary, to say the least.

"Well, quiet down, quiet down, Officer! Nothing's so complicated. Being scot-free, for instance, it'll be all that I need… Besides the bucks, of course. And no links to my name. I don't wanna be a marked man. I have a family to protect."

"Of course!" Hutch rushed to answer, "_There wouldn't be another Lionel Rigger in our lives"_, Hutch thought. "Let me see what I can get. The extent of this trade, I can't make it alone, do you understand? I'll contact you tomorrow, this same time here, you'll be available?"

"Of course I will. Here, same time."

"Same time, the same booth," Hutch said while starting to getting up.

"Detective, we have a deal."

"Nice to meet you, Leon."

The thin, shorter man also stood.

They shook hands.

And Hutch burst out of The Pits, straight to El Cholo, straight to Starsky's.

He had some good news to share with his best friend.

**ACT 8 -RESCUE BREATHING-**

"He's coming around!"

Starsky could hardly hear distant and far, deaf sounds.

Someone was smothering him. He felt stifled, suffocated, and he couldn't breathe. He hurt so much. Someone was stepping over his chest.

Savagely.

"_Move that monster. Get it out!"_ He thought he was screaming, but he wasn't.

A pain stabbed his eyes. It was so sharp and intense that he couldn't get them opened, either. He thought he would better remain in that state, voluntarily blindfolded.

Forever.

The light was perversely bright behind his eyelids. The orbs underneath were off-white. The thin and protective skin was scrunched up from the intense heat.

It was dry and cracked.

Like he was.

He wanted to scream, to talk and explain although he felt muted.

He could not. He just couldn't utter a sound. There was that heaviness all around him, and it was enveloping him.

Brutally.

The heaviness was all over his chest. He just couldn't breathe.

"_What if I cease to do it?"_

It was very tempting…

Something was stuck in his mouth. It was piercing his throat; drilling holes through him.

Like a razor, though muffled.

Something, no, _someone_ was killing him.

His swollen tongue was big, cotton alike and he hurt too much.

"Starsky? Dave! Oh, Come on, buddy, can you hear me? Are you back with me? You okay?" Dobey heard the doctor saying, "_What's going on?"_ the Captain thought and entered the Squad room; he froze at the image in front of him.

"_Lemme breathe. Get out! I need air, some air, please!"_ Starsky thought that he had shouted.

Nobody heard.

He felt sunken, downed at the bottom of his own existence.

"Oh for Chrissake!" Dobey said alarmed.

"You pick up his legs, Captain. Come on, help me, here! Raise them up, here over this chair."

Someone was touching him; he couldn't get rid of. He felt disrespectfully vexed.

They rose his legs, his head was flat, cold and void of life; the brain was frozen and he was sure he had no blood.

He was cold.

"Get out of here, give him air. C' mon Starsky, c' mon buddy." Sam shouted.

He was thirsty; dry. They put something fresh, something cold pressing his mouth.

He could always take it but he was afraid he was going to drown if he did.

He felt rough and couldn't get his mouth opened totally lethargic as he was.

"_What's going on?"_ He thought.

"What's going on, Sam?" Dobey asked, frantically.

The poured water was circling his chin, like whimsical rivers that meandered through his neck.

He barely listened to what was going on around.

So tired.

So cold.

He shivered.

"What's going on, Sam?" Dobey asked again. The Captain was repeating the same question as in a chant; he was scared to death and couldn't take his eyes off of Starsky's unmoving body. The rotund man was terrified and worried. He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew that it wasn't right only by looking at Starsky's bluish lips, his haunted face and his deep downed closed eyes that ended in the dark circles around them, "Please, Sam what's going on?"

"Nothing good." the doc said. He knew.

Suddenly, they weren't able to control Starsky anymore.

His body started being rebellious and transmuted. It morphed into different shapes.

Dobey was transfixed. "Starsky? No! son, don't…" he cried and raised his eyes to Simmons who was entering the Squad room.

Babcock, who had also entered was standing still, terrified, wondering what was happening and suddenly, squatted beside the sick man. He tried to help, but with all his being he could barely stop him from hitting his head on the floor.

Suddenly, Starsky's limp body jolted uncontrolled again, this time in one big, continuous seizure, convulsing, again and again.

Endlessly.

"Oh, boy, what's going on?" Babcock started asking frantically.

It looked like an electric shock.

His body was shaking, trembling.

His head was adrift, moving from side to side continuously, restlessly, like searching for something, someone… madly.

"Oh, my Goodness, Starsky, please!"

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

"_Oh My God, he can't breathe!"_ Sam thought, and the Captain said aloud again, "What's going on Ressler, C'mon you help him! You tell me! What's going on?"

Starsky's undisciplined body was hard to read.

His chest was burning, his sternum felt like broken in two by the force of his rebellious heart. The bone's movement was so evident and visible that it looked like it was going to jump over and out of the thorax as if it was sweeping away his torn skin from his insides.

"_Stop it. Make it stop! I hurt so much, stop!"_ Starsky begged for, silently.

Nobody heard.

He knew he was already broken.

"Stop this, Sam, he's convulsing! Help him!"

Dobey was on the verge of breaking, in turmoil and desperate. He was shouting so loud until suddenly as unexpectedly as it had started, it stopped.

All frantic spasms stopped.

He stopped, too.

There was a profound silence, and all of them looked at themselves. They held their breaths, suspended them in the space between them, until the moment they were entirely interrupted.

Even Starsky's.

They stared at each other horrified and dumbfounded.

He wasn't breathing at all.

Starsky was not breathing.

"Starsky, boy… Starsky, please?" Dobey said profoundly moved.

"Starsky, man, please, breathe!" Sam shouted this time with concern.

Took them two or five seconds to react, they didn't know.

"He's not breathing! Call the paramedics, now. He's not breathing!" Then the Captain shouted wildly.

"_This is it!"_ Starsky thought. He could feel it again, his respiration was blocked.

Totally finished.

He finally collapsed.

He had been there before.

"Starsky!"

Someone was shouting again.

"_Me? Someone's calling me? I'm here, but I can't breathe. I'm here, please! Get me outta here! I wanna come back! Help me! Hutch-Hutch? Where are you, buddy? Not again. No!"_ Starsky thought.

Far, more distant, remotely, so far away…

"Starsky? No!"

"_Who's shouting?"_, he didn't know anymore.

Dobey was hurting so bad that he couldn't help but scream.

Babcock was shaking, and Simmons tried to stop him, to comfort him, making feel better while Sam kept assessing Starsky's unresponsive body.

And there it was, another piercing cry.

"Starsky NO! C'mon buddy, you just breathe, breathe with me, breathe, I'll help you do it, c' mon, c' mon!" Sam was shattered.

He had his buddy's life in his hands.

Violent and wild, desperate movements were ruling him now. He knew, and he hurt a lot.

"_Hey! Take care, Hey! You're hurting me. What's going on? I ain't coming back again. You hurting me! Help!" _Starsky thought.

The doc started rescue breathing, two full breaths, each one second.

Nothing.

"Gimme that cutter, cut here! Cut here!" Sam Ressler was desperate, he was losing him.

They cut his blue t-shirt.

Starsky's breastbone stayed exposed; his shirt ripped in two.

Thirty rhythmical chest compressions.

One, two, three… thirty

Nothing.

"Damn!"

Sam's hands were all over him. They were all over him, as well.

The doctor tilted the brunet's head back to open the airway; he pinched his nose closed. Touching him and insulting him.

Two more breaths.

More than 30 chest compressions. As many as it took.

"_How long will it take? I'm tired. I ain't gonna come back again. Not like this, I hurt…"_

Someone was pushing him. They were forcing him. Someone was thrusting and squeezing the air inside of him one more time and again and again. They were compressing him. Crushing him with bare hands and pressing down his boisterous chest. They were also pleading, urging, exhorting, entreating… him to breathe.

Let's just breathe!

"Breathe Starsky, breathe!" Simmons cried desperately.

"Please, just be all right. Let's just be okay, Starsky" Babcock begged.

A blow to his chest.

"Come on Starsky, breath!" Ressler was frantic.

He knew his friend's life was leaving the body.

"God son, you know what you mean to me, please. Not again Starsky, let's just breathe", Dobey begged silently, his desperate shouts flooded the Station; he started praying. He was a believer, "_God help me, help him!"_ The Captain was entrusted to the Lord.

Another blow.

To revive him.

Starsky took a mouthful of air.

And then he came back.

"He's coming around…yes! He's coming around." Sam said, relieved and drained. He was exhausted. "He's regaining his breathing sounds. He's breathing on his own. Fuck! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Give him room, give him air… And stand back! Away!" he motioned with his hands to Starsky's fellow officers and his Captain.

Starsky was back. Sam ceased his ministrations.

Two tries and a few breaths were all that it took.

It was an eternity of fear.

They had been just seconds.

The doctor knew.

"Yeah, Starsky! Yeah, Atta boy! Thanks. Thanks, Heaven. Thanks, God! My Goodness, I'm happy you were here Ressler. I wouldn't have had the nerve to perform CPR on him, even… Nothing I guess. I wouldn't have known what to do!" Dobey added while he dropped himself into Starsky's chair, beaten. He pulled a hanky from his rear pocket and slid it through his sweaty forehead. He was almost panting. The tension and the distress were leaving his body, leaving him weak and exhausted. "Tell me just what has happened here Sam, is he okay? is he going to be okay?"

"First of all, you should calm down, Captain. I didn't perform CPR on him!" Sam scratched his head. "It was just… hey! Don't worry. It isn't a heart condition or any heart disordered either. Nothing like that, he just… I…" The young doctor made a pause, wondering. He was confused. "I guess he just couldn't breathe. I don't know," he sighed and said reflexively, "There's no way of knowing it right now, Captain. It could've been a syncope as much as anything else or maybe a symptom of something underneath. I'm not sure just yet. I'm gonna run some tests; we're gonna find the answers. We need to do it and soon." He wasn't looking at Dobey in his eyes while he talked; still diligent in assessing the patient's status.

The doctor in him still examined the motionless form of his friend, who was quietly breathing, though unconscious. Sam looked very worried; he knew that this hadn't been an ordinary situation. He was still kneeling on the ground at Starsky's shoulder's level, who was still barely conscious; he was checking him for a steady pulse and breathing sounds that mercifully were there.

After some while, he decided to place his friend on his side with his head tilted back for his easy retrieval. But so far, nothing; Starsky was still out of it, though conscious and on the way to recovery. As he continued examining him, the doctor began to rule out options, mentally. He was concerned because what he had just witnessed had been a severe episode undoubtedly.

He decided which one would be the best course of action he was going to take after his buddy gets better in both aspects, strictly medical and personal.

"Guess when he wakes up I'm gonna ask him whether he was experiencing trouble breathing or if he was wheezing or having some coughing lately. I don't know, something." He shook his head in concern and sighed. He was talking to himself likewise. "I don't know what to think! Maybe a cardiac condition could be? But yet… I believe that this is nothing more than respiratory failure."

He was clueless and asked Captain Dobey whether he knew about something concerning Starsky's health.

"Captain, did Starsky complain about something in the recent days? I mean, I know he's under stress; we've been talking about it a few hours ago on the telephone, but… did you realize if he's experienced some pain in his chest lately, for example? Have you noticed something different about him? Something that might have caught your attention?" Sam's concern was evident enough, and Dobey realized that the situation was far worse than he could have imagined. It hadn't been only a syncope but something else… He knew.

"Some pain? In his chest? You mean that this could've been a heart attack?" Dobey simplified frightened.

Nothing. Sam didn't say anything.

"Sam?" Dobey insisted worriedly.

"No, not a heart attack! I was just thinking. Don't panic, Captain!. I don't know, yet. This is really hard to diagnose at this time. But the hell he's sick, Dobey, I'm sure of that!" was Ressler's short response.

Dobey realized at that moment that the road ahead would be arduous and steep.

And the same feeling shared everybody else.

The doctor's constant movements had been eloquent; he had never ceased to give the brunet his ministrations.

While he was slapping the brunet trying to make him react, the doctor sent Babcock and Simmons to the infirmary to get some medicines to help Starsky regain his full conscious. He even sent them to the locker room to search for other of Starsky's blue shirts and replace the ripped one... and gain some time.

The Officers left the Squadron.

Sam was utterly worried and seemingly at a loss for answers and reasons.

So was Dobey.

While the doctor was alone with the Captain, waiting for the brunet to recover, he broke. Sam thanked that there wasn't anybody else but the Captain in the Squad room to see his downfall.

"I'm sorry Captain. It was a very stressful situation", he said overwhelmed. He looked consumed.

"Yeah, I know, Ressler, nothing to be ashamed of." He put his arm around the man's shoulder and made an endless pause. An awkward atmosphere invaded the Precinct as if the time stood still. There were so many questions to ask. "Do you think that he's gonna be okay?" The Captain said, still petrified, still at his detective's side. He was watching every rise and fall in his friend's chest, intently, afraid that its rhythm could stop, anytime.

"I hope so, Cap." Sam sighed, and Dobey realized that he was not so sure. The Captain was also insecure, but he continued saying.

"Yeah, me too." He rattled some change in his pocket. "Fortunately the shifts are almost finished, I mean it's good that there isn't anybody here. I would like to spare Starsky the discomfort, having to face everybody's eyes and curiosity, explaining what's happened to everyone. He doesn't like being exposed, you know?. He hates being weak and vulnerable."

"Yeah! Thank God we're all alone," Sam said briefly.

Dobey rasped his throat and continued saying, "I remember after Gunther, how uncomfortable it made him feel to being the magical patient; some kind of wonder." Dobey smiled sweetly at the memory. "He has fought so hard!"

"Yeah, I know. He seems to be okay now; he's quiet."

Dobey nodded. The doctor stood up.

"I'm gonna give him albuterol to ease his breathing," Sam rubbed his hands. "Yeah, definitely better we're all alone. It gives him a little more privacy to recover without any extra pressure," he raised his eyes to the Captain, "you know what I mean… don't you?" Sam was concerned about the impact the situation could provoke in Hutch.

The doctor also knew how tired Starsky was to have his partner's eyes on him. Tired of being the center of Hutch's nightmares.

Dobey agreed.

"Hutch," The Captain asserted softly but without hesitation, while stroking Starsky's hair, paternally - his young officer was still on the ground and breathing slowly but steady -. "Yeah, I know." The rotund man waited for some time and collected, then asked the doctor "Are you worried, Ressler? because I've got the feeling that what we still don't know will be hard to handle, won't be?"

"I only hope that this will be less complicated than I expect it to be, Captain." The doctor finished.

Dobey nodded, pensively.

While Starsky was there, in the way to recovering, both of them were trying to understand the last events that had unfolded in front of their incredulous eyes.

Dobey was devastated.

Up to this day, he didn't understand how he hadn't realized that something was up.

Up to this moment, Dobey didn't know why things had had to go that far to find out that something was wrong with Starsky.

Hutch was right.

For some unknown reason, everybody at the Precinct had been the witness of everything. The problem was that they had denied it and done nothing about it so far.

Neither Dobey nor Sam, no one had done anything.

Starsky's words earlier in the morning echoed in his ears… He thought it was about time to make some self-criticism; what happened to the brunet had been a process, and they all had witnessed it.

Dobey felt ashamed for being his Captain. For Christ's sake! Starsky was like a son to him; he thought that he should have been able to suspect something.

His lack of alertness was unforgivable. He hadn't taken care of him.

_How had he disappointed him that much?_

_How could he have been so blind?_

_How had he left him so alone?_

During the last days, Dobey had realized that he hadn't done anything but judge him.

In fact, he hadn't done much of anything but scold him, shouted at him but never loved him.

And now, therefore, he felt embarrassed.

While he was sitting there, waiting for Starsky to recover, the Captain realized that he had denied, systematically, that something was happening.

_How far different from his old self the brunet had been, lately?_

He had even talked to Hutch about it, earlier that same day, and then? What did he do?

He didn't do anything to help him.

Only he had rebuked him like he was a little kid, and he felt guilty about it.

The differences between the old Starsky and this strange man so similar to his old buddy were evident. And those differences were not only referred to the fact that he was physically different.

Dobey started inquiring inside him and looking meticulously into the man who was lying on the floor in front of him to find any sign or pieces of evidence that would help him.

And he found them.

Starsky was paler than ever, though his color came and went, lately.

He had lost some weight; he was thinner, naturally, not in a significant amount but thinner, and he was working too much. He looked withdrawn though he was sure he felt that way as a result of his extraordinary ability to blame himself when he couldn't find the answers to a given case.

"_Parry was to blame. Nothing's wrong with Starsky"_ he had thought for some time now, that's why he had dismissed the feeling before.

_"The maelstrom of the investigation is devouring him; his failures to get to the killer and catch him are the reason for his decay; besides, It has never happened before that it took that long to catch a murderer in Metro, Hutch.",_ he had repeated over and over again to his troubled partner.

"_Yeah, he's frustrated, and he's working too much! Nothing's wrong with Starsky!"_ He had excused him countless times in front of his superiors since that was the widespread opinion at Metro.

However, how many times had he repeated to himself the same preposterous statement maybe without even believing in it? Had he been so sure of that that he couldn't see any difference?

_"Is nothing really wrong with Starsky?"_, he couldn't help but keep asking himself now.

His physical appearance was just a part of everything else. As it were the tip of an iceberg and It was not the only thing that had changed in him, neither the worst of all.

The thing that was really overwhelming and disturbing was that Starsky looked mentally stricken as if he were an emotional wreck.

He had just witnessed his sluggish reaction a few hours ago in his Office.

Starsky had tried to stay confident; he had attempted to hide his situation many times, the Captain had noticed the efforts the man had put to disguise the evidence. "_Damn him! He sometimes achieved it too!"_ the Captain couldn't help but recall.

However, at times he hadn't.

"_And what did I do about it?"_

The most unforgivable of all things was that he could see that there were many shadows around his officer instead of the light that used to envelope him usually.

And instead of helping him, he had blamed him for letting him in his dark.

While Dobey was waiting for Starsky to recover, he thought that his friend was a bright and vivid man.

He was.

He had not been, lately.

Bright that is.

And he craved his light to return.

He had been selfish.

There were moments when Starsky's mood was too subdued. He looked like he was beaten to death. Then, there were other days when he was outraged, upbeat and taking everything in a fighting form. And there were those other days when he was thoughtful and pensive as if he had tried to simmer himself in anger at his situation.

It was too much to take.

He had been there, and he hadn't done anything to help him.

His neglect made him feel a lesser friend.

"_What kind of a friend I am?"_ Dobey felt muddled and sad.

There was no easy way to find the proper words to explain how he felt.

Somehow he realized that he had let him down, and at the same time he also blamed Starsky for not having asked him for help.

"_Damn you, Dave, you're stubborn!"_

While he was waiting for him to recover, he remembered how he missed his friend's intensely alluring and lovable personality, his sometimes easy going and -at the same time- explosive attitude and that bright smile; his outlook on life that brightened his days and could make him forget his miseries, everybody else's miseries!

So he decided at that moment and at that moment only, that he would do whatever it takes to help this man and never would let him down again.

"_I won't, Dave!"_ He vowed to his friend silently.

***************** S&H*****************

"6 June 1983. 6 PM. The first hour of the first day of the beginning of the end, yeah! Sounds good! I can even name a movie." he cracked a smile aloud.

The man sighed and then laughed with both his lungs.

In full force.

And then, closed the door of his apartment behind.

He turned on the TV set. He got to the fridge and opened a can of cold beer. He took his shoes off, the wig, his clothes and then nude; he sat tiredly on his comfortable couch.

He closed his eyes to the world for a brief moment and blew a mouthful of air from his lungs and straight to the ceiling.

He was exhausted and tired and beaten, but the sensations that were coursing through his body were so fulfilling that he could relax in anticipation.

The expectation of the final act conquered him.

He had been planning the final installation since more than three years ago; since the day he'd been released from Cabrillo and watched him on the TV.

He felt seduced at the tempting visualization and for a short time, he fell into a peaceful slumber.

At 6.30 PM, he woke up and went to the room to put his burgundy silk robe, then he got back to the living room and took a sip from the beer can. It had warmed, and he was flustered so he threw the can and splashed it on the wall in front of him.

He went again to the fridge to get another brew. He opened it and drank it. It tasted good, and it was so damn cold that his body shivered at the contact.

He was boiling.

The air outside was sweltering and hot.

Like the next victim who also would be hot.

"That man is sultry," he said aloud and laughed.

Hot.

He had gathered all the information he needed to begin the last chapter of his plan.

He had the addresses, the phone numbers, and he knew the movements of everyone involved.

He felt obsessed.

He knew he was obsessed.

He needed everybody, and mostly the two of them to pay.

He was searching for his vengeance since some time ago. Now it was time to harvest.

"Okay, time to put it on paper," he said to himself.

He was always alone.

He was his only company.

He stood up and went to the darkroom to remove the film from the camera, he turned the safelight on and poured the magic liquids over the papers; the chemicals flowed freely across the film's surfaces washing them thoroughly. He took the tweezers, moved the fluids and saw the images that started sprouting like spring flowers.

"Yeah. Here you are, hotshot! I can make it work now! North Sycamore Ave? This news is dynamite. Three streets below?" He laughed. "Yeah, that's it."

He got out of the dark room, turned off the TV and went to the Turntable.

The Twilight of God's chords surrounded it all.

"Oh Wagner, such greatness. Götterdämmerung, yeah. Beautiful word, It'll be one Twilight of the Gods."

He laughed.

He opened the window and watched the skyline of the city that laid under.

Twinkling silver stars were starting to kill the afternoon and appeared planetary in front of him. He was on the seventh hill, at the top of it; not so far from North Sycamore.

"Everything links me to you, my hero. Listen to this music! Gunther, Lord of us, here goes, Hagen after you." "_What an incredible coincidence, Gunther! I'm your nemesis and I'm gonna win"_, he thought. "I will complete and fulfill your expectation. Oh, Wagner! You know I've always been a ban on Love."

And he went to the turntable again to change the Long Play.

"Das Liebesverbot, yes! This one it is! It is the correct one!"

He scattered all the papers on the table.

He was anxious.

The next hearing was going to be on August 28th; he chose the date on purpose.

"_That was not a coincidence,"_ he thought.

As he had mastered, after the disturbance at The Pits, Huggy fired him; earlier, he had gone to the City Hall, to the Court and applied the forms to start the lawsuit.

His plan had begun its final step.

Huggy wouldn't ever realize what he had gotten himself into; whom he had gotten involved with.

"_Huggy didn't know what his carelessness and neglect could cost him,"_ he thought.

They were all going to pay.

***************** S&H*****************

"How long has he been out?" Babcock asked.

Sam looked at his watch. 6.30 PM. "Less than fifteen minutes. I arrived here at 6 o'clock." The doctor shrugged and got to where Starsky was.

"Starsky can you hear me, pal? Are you back, man? Come on buddy, give it to me? That look of yours... I know you can make it." Sam said carefully trying not to strain him.

Starsky gently opened his eyes. Slowly.

He swallowed and came back weakly.

After a while, he closed his eyes again, resting this time. The brunet took a deep breath, trying to inflate his lungs, and said, "Sam, I don't feel anything good! I feel sick." He felt dizzy again.

"Easy Starsky, you want to drink some water?"

He shook his head.

"Tell me what-what happened?", the brunet asked.

"You passed out on me, Starsky. That's what happened." The doctor sighed deeply.

"Oh! I-I don't remember."

"Sure, no worries. It's okay. How do you feel?"

Starsky opened his eyes and tried to focus. The lights seemed to be ravishing. He closed them again.

"Q-queasy!" he managed to say.

"Let me put something under your head, here, come on raise your head, buddy. That's it!" The doctor put Starsky's jacket under his head with infinite gentleness. "Is it better?"

"Yeah, much better. Thanks."

"Take it easy and relax. I've just given you a shot of something; you'll be okay in no time."

"Huh…" Starsky breathed and closed his eyes; Sam got worried.

"Starsky?" he called him.

"Yeah. I'm okay. But what happened?" he couldn't remember.

"You gave us a scare, passed out on me," he told him softly again while rubbing his back. "Stay still and wait to feel stronger, it'll pass, soon it'll be all over."

Sam patted his friend's shoulder, encouraging him as he stood up.

Starsky squeezed his eyes shut again and nodded.

"Yeah, you've got us all scared here, Dave …"

"_That other voice?"_ Starsky thought, and he opened his eyes gradually, and Dobey came into focus, just behind the doctor.

"Oh Cap'n," he said totally spent and ashamed.

The Captain's face was livid white and his big dark brown eyes were terror-stricken, "Yeah! Why don't you just tell me before? You pigheaded!" Dobey chuckled tenderly, though yet eerily, and ducked by his officer's side speaking softly to him while stroking his damp curls that were rebelliously plastered to his forehead. "You just… I mean I didn't know you were feeling sick! You didn't tell!" Dobey shook his head no "You shouldn't have come to work, Dave, maybe you should have taken sick leave and all or something I …"

"You called me Dave? Damn!" Starsky closed his eyes.

"Of course I called you Dave! Whatever! The hell with Parry, you listen? You should have told me you were sick, Starsky! What are friends for? Why didn't you just say anything? I would have made you go home, son. Are you trying to get the "Employee of the Month" award? It's a waste of time; you would never qualify." The captain chuckled.

When Starsky didn't answer, he regretted and stood up feeling remorseful and disgruntled.

He was also scared, but instantly he turned back to him since he thought that he should remind everybody there who was the one in charge. Dobey said pointing at Starsky, finally, "And neither are you coming back tomorrow if that's what you're thinking! And I'm not taking a NO for an answer. I'm just as stubborn, if not more so than you are, you hear me? Now you better go and see Dr. Goodman or anyone, this-this is anything but ordinary, Starsky. I'll tell Hutch to make an appointment at Memorial on your behalf."

At the mention of Hutch's name, Starsky started getting increasingly nervy, "No!" he said.

Dobey waited for some time until the Brunet spoke again "Please Cap'n, I'm okay now, please? Don't call him, not yet. I'll get better." and slowly began to sit.

"Easy, easy Starsky, you're gonna get dizzy." Sam helped him, and Starsky made a sluggish sign, trying to halt him with his hand.

"It's okay; I'm okay Cap'n. Don't call Hutch, now. Please?" he repeated and without hurrying he continued talking to Dobey.

As a matter of fact, nothing and nobody were going to stop him and prevent that Hutch could find out what had happened to him today.

He explained his reasons, gently.

"I don't think that this is a good idea, Starsky!" Dobey tried to reason.

"As good as any, Cap'n. Trust me; I'm okay."

Dobey looked at Sam and sighed; reminded himself of his previous thoughts and promise. Starsky realized the opportunity to get away with his ploy; so he pushed.

"Please, I need your help, Cap'n. Don't let me down this time, uh? Let's keep Hutch outta this. For now?" Starsky looked seemingly recovered, so he insisted, "You know him! He's gonna be terrified, and he's so skittish... I 'm sure this is just this persistent coughing I've been suffering since last week. Nothing serious. I am uh - I guess that I'm coming down with something, like these two? Patterson and the other? Minnie told me. I don't know or maybe a bad cold or something, Sam here" he nodded to his friend, "I'm sure he's gonna help me find out." he sounded very grateful.

Sam could only feel emotionally drained at that moment; his thinking was not clear, but he accepted the compliment. However, regardless of the doctor's inner strength and determination, his legs couldn't help but wobble as he remembered the devastating and dreadful moment when he realized that Starsky's breathing was severely impaired. The moment when he had realized that the difference between survival and death depended on how quickly enough oxygen gets into his friend's body and when he realized that he had saved his friend's life.

He relaxed then, seeing Starsky seemingly recovered and having gotten his strength back.

Now the doctor had the challenge to find out why had it all happened.

His friend was saying that he trusted him. So he made a slight nod of approval at Starsky's words.

He could take that challenge though still, he felt speechless and worried...

The silence was filling all the spaces, though it only lasted a few seconds until the phone rang.

"Hello?" Roger Babcock picked up Starsky's extension and answered the phone. It was Hutch. "Oh, Hutch, Hi!" he searched nervously with his eyes to the others, "This is Roger, mhm!"

Starsky gestured him to shut up and so did the Captain; the fat man motioned his detective to transfer the call to his Office, so he did. "Oh no, no he's not here, but buddy, the Cap's here, and he wants to talk to you. I'll transfer the phone call to his Office, wait a minute" and he put his hand on the speaker.

"You better talk to him in your Office, Cap".

Starsky's eyes were two pools of doubts, Dobey quiets him down. "I promise I won't tell him anything, relax! but you also have to comply with your part of the deal." Dobey said while started leaving the room "You're gonna get that appointment!"

Babcock transferred the call and hung up.

"That's right, Starsky. You just left us scared to the marrow here, you know? And we're living one hell of aftermath right now. I don't know if we're able or not to make up our minds whether it would be proper or not to do anything or don't do it." Simmons shrugged, "Less make any big decision like leaving Hutch in the dark..." he finished saying.

They all stayed silent. Dobey put his hand on the knock and nodded.

Babcock added to his partner's words, seriously "I agree. Maybe you don't wanna tell him what happened to you for some time but certainly, we do."

The precinct looked like the promised land to Starsky; they were alone, no fellow officers and the lack of murmurs were just the perfect covers for him. He wouldn't have any more witnesses than The Cap and Simmons and Babcock. He knew he could handle them. But then, Babcock and Simmons also felt they had a saying in everything.

"Yes, Starsky," Simmons added, "Babcock is right. Now, this is ours, you understand? We're all in this together. Do you wanna leave Hutch out of this for a moment? Okay, will do! But you're gonna have to be accountable for your actions to all of us! Okay, Starsky?" The fellow officer winked.

"Exactly. You should be accountable to us in every little detail." Dobey opened the door to his office, "But I better go and talk to your partner or otherwise he'll be suspicious. I'll be back," Dobey said and closed the door behind.

"And as your physician AND especially your friend, I urge you to run some tests, starting tomorrow. You told me you had been coughing, okay. Did you have a fever, experienced some shortness of breath lately?" the doctor started asking questions.

"Yeah, sort of… That's - I" he winced and nodded, "that's what I wanted to tell you, in fact. The reason I've called you Sam, I uh - I wanted to know what was happening with me. I've been feeling exhausted during these past weeks. I'm so freaked out." Starsky giggled nervously and took a deep sigh, the truth had been released.

He had said it out loud, and it was so hard even for him to admit it.

"Well, if so, we'll have to find out, buddy" Sam ended, worried.

Simmons and Babcock agreed.

"Okay, I guess now I'm cornered" Starsky smiled sweetly.

The hell he was cornered!

One and a half hour later, after Sam had administered the tentative dose of intravenous Albuterol that Simmons got from the infirmary; after he had given him tablets to take each 8 hours to help him ease his coughing and his chest tightness; just right after he had stitched Starsky's head injury, the Captain dismissed them.

Starsky was strong enough to leave.

In fact, he looked good, recovered as if nothing had ever happened to him, so they decided to go to Starsky's place and gather there with Hutch as he had planned.

Hutch, who wouldn't be informed of anything related to this incident as long as it wasn't necessary.

Just to protect him, in Starsky's words.

Meanwhile, the brunet would go to Memorial on Tuesday, the day after, to get a thorough examination, a complete checkup. Dobey would personally take the necessary measures to find the excuses to avoid Hutch realized that something had happened. He decided he would take Starsky out of the roster and gave him enough time to go and get to the Hospital and be checked.

That was Dobey's primary concern: that Starsky receives medical attention.

Later he could deal with Hutch.

Meanwhile, Ressler would get in touch with Dr. Goodman himself, Starsky's former doctor at the time of Gunther's ordeal.

So Sam would contact him to sort things out, make the so needed medical appointments and advise the physician of the gravely severe incident that had happened today.

There weren't any loose ends left behind.

So they all made a pact, as well.

A pact of silence, for a few days.

"Yeah! Just a few days." all of them agreed.

They had every I dotted, every t crossed.

Even Sam would drive the Camaro to Starsky's so Hutch wouldn't get suspicious, Starsky riding shotgun.

They had a deal.

ACT 9 -RIDIN' ZEBRAS THE SHOW MUST GO ON-

"Zebra III, Zebra III" the sound of Mildred's familiar voice shrilled metallically.

"This is Zebra III, responding, howdy Mildred! What's going on my princess? Hey, I thought you worked the day shift this week, this late and you still at the precinct?"

Starsky, the charmer, sounded good and clear. It looked like nothing had ever happened to him, he even felt all right, happy and safe, enjoying the moment. His breathing was easier, just two hours after everything had happened.

"Howdy Starsky, yeah! JoAnn's sick, you know this bug that's around? so I'm waiting for Williams to reassign a substitute. In the meantime, you know how it is... Anyway, patch you to Hutch here, he gave me the creeps searching for you, man. God bless I've found you already!" She sounded relieved.

"Hey? Did he? Is he pissed off or something?"

"Or something! Well, his usual self when he doesn't know where to find you." the woman said, she was familiar with the partner's dependency.

Starsky made a gesture, "yeah…" he could figure out how pissed off his partner could get.

The crack of the microphone broke the silence again.

"He seems to be frenzied, like a mad man. Thanks, God, I finally get to you, but you better make it a code two and take care of your heavenly gorgeous body, handsome, because he really bites!"

Starsky laughed at Mildred's acid humor. "Thanks for the warning, Mildred, I'm already vaccinated against rabies, luckily." He laughed and sounded so cheerful that he gave Sam a grateful glance from the right side of his car forgetting everything that had happened.

Sam glanced.

Meanwhile, the sound of the dispatcher was heard behind, changing the frequency.

"Hi, Hutch, what's going on?" Starsky said, lightly.

"What's going on?" The blond sounded furious, to put it mildly. "I was at your front door here, half an hour and nothing! I decided to get in, couldn't see the Camaro nor you anywhere. Where the hell are you? It's a quarter to eight, Starsky."

"Oh! We've set a time frame, and I don't remember?" he cheated Hutch slyly.

"You, the practical joker! Haha! You are such fun, buddy!" Hutch could hear Starsky's chuckles behind the line. "I'm listening to your funny girly giggles!"

"Girly!" Starsky shouted perplexed. "Oh, come on! Relax partner. I'm on my way and almost there, just a few blocks away." Starsky covered the mouthpiece to avoid being heard and told Sam quietly, signaling him with his arm. "Pullover, we should change our seats... can't arrive riding shotgun."

Sam nodded while Hutch talked behind.

"I can't hear you, buddy, what were you saying?" Hutch's voice came in the air.

"Oh, it's nothing! I'm saying that why don't ya go'n get some root beer, uh? I think I'm running short of root beer, could be?" He tried to sound casual, distracting him.

"Great minds think alike, Starsk! I've already known; I remember you were short of that doubtful and unpalatable liquid you're so fond of," Starsky made a face that Hutch couldn't see. "... and bought it at a convenience store two blocks away just for you, oh and… I'm sorry, but I never made it to El Cholo. Don't feel like going to Koreatown again, you know? And well, there was a car accident in the vicinity of Harbor Freeway and Santa Monica, and all the access were closed. I couldn't get to the other branch in downtown either, all cordoned off! It's been the biggest traffic police operation I've ever seen in decades in Bay City. It was a mess, frankly. So I guess we can either get some Pizzas from Rafallo's or… Hey, wait! Do you want me to cook the Paul Muni special? I can prepare it! I hmm, I'm looking into your fridge right now, uh… and you seem to have meat and vegetables, and you know what?"

Hutch made a long pause, Starsky asked "What? What happened, Hutch?"

"They are edible!" Hutch said funnily.

"Really?" Starsky played along from the other side of the microphone. "And who's the practical joker now, uh?"

"Guess that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, dummy," Hutch lordly said.

"So I am THE Teacher" Starsky redoubled. "Well, at least you assume I taught you the tricks of the trade" the brunet finished.

They both laughed, amusingly.

"Starsk, hey actually, I can cut some vegetables and prepare the Special… Will you want me to?" The blond offered kindly.

"Yeah buddy, though you'd promised..." He sounded pretty disappointed. "I was as happy as a clam thinking about my burritos... anyway, that sounds great! I'll go for the Paul Muni Special but whatever you do, it'll be Ok. I'm starving! So you choose and you surprise us, okay? Oh and, by the way, I'm with Sam here … err but, Hutch, I think we better end this radio, we can't keep on using the official band just to sort our menus out, can we?"

Sam had signaled him and pulled over the car to change their seats with Starsky, so they did.

They get to Starsky's as soon as the traffic jam allowed them, Starsky drove as good as ever, smoothly; enjoying the moment and the cold breeze. Breathing easier and when they get out of the car, Sam asked him whether he was feeling good or not.

The cop's response just stabbed the young doctor in the core.

Starsky was as excited and happy as a little boy.

"Man, I should have fainted before! I mean this album… what? This album something you gave me is just miraculous! It's been almost fifteen days I can't breathe this natural, Sam! I can breathe actually!" He opened his eyes amazed and in wonder. "Could you please gimme another shot? Please?" He begged and laughed in earnest.

"Albuterol, Starsky! It's called albuterol, but if wishes were horses! Buddy, this is not a cure! This drug controls symptoms of some lung diseases but doesn't cure them." He tried to make Starsky reason. "We should find the cause, the reason you felt that chest tightness lately and we have to do it yesterday, because of your medical background. You got it? I mean, first thing in the morning tomorrow. Okay?"

Sam looked into Starsky's eyes that were surprisingly etched in the floor in a mix of astonishment, exhaustion, and fear. He downed his head searching for his friend's face and said, "Buddy, Hey! I don't wanna scare you, but we have to be serious about it and find out, you understand? Listening to you feeling better is marvelous but not good enough. Tomorrow we'll see buddy, remember we've got a deal, haven't we?" It was Sam's not so brief and earnest response.

"Oh, yeah yeah yeah I remember, of course, I remember. I remember everything. I also remember that I couldn't breathe just a few hours ago because my lungs hurt like hell. And that was the case with them lately, for the past fifteen days, yeah, yeah I remember. How to forget!" Starsky sounded appalled. "But, please Sam, Lemme enjoy this moment. I ain't feeling this good in… I Dunno, I guess it' hasn't been this way forever! So Doc, please, will you?"

His helplessness was overpowering, and Sam couldn't but grant him

"Okay, shut up! Stop. We'll forget until tomorrow!" Sam said trying to comfort him.

**********************S&H***********************

When they opened the door, Hutch was chopping vegetables and bits of meat to add to the rost. A glass of beer with him, the apron, and the music of Carole King's "Up on the Roof" completed the environment.

The Paul Muni special's aroma pervaded everything; actually, it was the smell of the fried onions, which gave the whole atmosphere a homely and warmly familiar quality.

That unique scent; that ancestral smell, which refers to grandmothers and simple stories, the smell that indicated that they had finally arrived home.

Only and safely, home. Simple.

Starsky couldn't help but feel mushy about it, he still didn't know why, but the feeling was there. He knew there was no place like that, upon his world with Hutch, the two of them, at home. When he climbed way up to the top of the stairs, and all his cares just drifted right into space with Hutch around him.

Hutch would take care of him like he always did.

There, in his place, there was peace as nowhere else could be and there the world below didn't bother him._ "Hey Hutch, this lyrics, up here on my roof,"_ he smiled silently. _"You always know everything, pal. You picked the right song. You are just great, buddy, I love you.!"_ Starsky thought.

It felt like magic. So he sang along with James Taylor the song, loudly,

"…So when I come home feeling tired and beat, I'll go up where the air is fresh and sweet.

I'll get far away from the hustling crowd

And all the rat-race noise down in the street...

On the roof, that's the only place I know, look at the city, baby.

Where you just have to wish to make it so, let's go up on the roof".

And then Sam started singing too while Hutch smiled with happiness and cheered for the great moment.

"And at night the stars, they put on a show for free.

And, darling, you can share it all with me, that's what I said, keep on telling you

That right smack dab in the middle of town, I found a paradise that's trouble proof.

And if this old world starts to get you down, there's room enough for two up on

The roof, up on the roof, up on the roof."

"Could be for three?" The doctor smiled amusingly to the two friends and asked them.

They shared a knowing glance and Sam understood.

There wouldn't ever be the same place for him upon his friends' roof.

"It's okay." Sam nodded, resigned. He knew.

They all smiled, they didn't need to say anything else about it.

"Hey, have you finished?"

That was Starsky's first reaction while he approached straight to the pot, song forgotten and bread in hand like a sword.

"Guess not, wait! but tell me, why have you been this late?"

Without looking at them, Hutch kept on cooking.

"Well, let's just say that we've been distracted by some unexpected situation at the Precinct… we could barely control." Starsky said, raised his eyebrows and dark blue eyes to Sam, who was wondering what Starsky's plan was and what was what he was going to say.

"Like?" Hutch raised his head to his partner wondering. He saw the lump and stitches on his front head and wondered touching him, surprised. "Oh, I see. Like this?"

"Like uh… Oh, no! Nope!" Starsky touched his forehead; he had even forgotten himself about the bump on his head. "The reason I won't be on the roster for tomorrow!"

After spitting the news to his friend, he waited for his reaction. Hutch frowned, and Starsky continued. "You - You'll have to play solo tomorrow, partner, that's it!" He scratched his head pensively.

"Because of that? You hurt yourself, what happened?" Hutch said worriedly.

"Oh, this? No, not this…" He touched his stitches again, "This, I h… I just stumbled and scratched my head that was all. Sam here, he stitched me, that's why we were late. No, the reason why you have to play solo is that, well, I gathered this info from Minnie about UCLA related to Kandalevsky and…"

"Which info?" Hutch asked curiously.

"Nothing! That this man was participating in a Federal Program or something like that. You heard the news?" Starsky asked him distractedly.

"Barely. So what?" the flaxen-haired man answered not so convincingly.

"Well, after you were gone, Dobey has already talked to the Dean there. I'm gonna meet him tomorrow. Alone." Starsky said matter of factly.

"Alone?" Hutch shrugged. "Alone. What? Why? How? Hey, are you afraid to share? Still the same, Starsk?"

Now Hutch sounded really disgusted.

"It's not that! I guess Dobey found you'll be more useful at the Station. He's got something for you to do, and you know what it is!" Starsky explained quietly.

"Yeah! Like leaving you alone so, you can arrogate yourself the success of the investigation?"

Starsky felt incredulously flabbergasted, what Hutch was saying had no sense, he rolled his eyes. "No! Buddy, you're going to an inferiority complex! I guess that he doesn't want me to spoil the whole thing with the Brass with my skillful diplomacy, that's more likely, and maybe, leaving me out of the Chiefs for tomorrow we can catch Parry, Whaddaya think? You have something to do that I can't do, as long as I know! It had always worked that way! What's wrong with that Hutch and what's wrong with you?" Starsky said incensed.

"You kidding me? What's wrong with me? Yeah, yeah, yeah! Now I'm the one who has 'problems'. I know about your hunch, but I insist that you're the one who wanna get rid of me, buddy. Not me!" Hutch sighed, he wasn't at ease.

"You've already talked to Dobey? I see…" Starsky said pretending not to knowing it.

"I did. Yeah, It's okay, Dobey came forward."

"Great!" Starsky said worried, and wondering whether Dobey had come along with the lie or not. "So what did he tell you?"

"Nothing so far about you! Except that, you were going to go to the University tomorrow. I was just hoping that we could go together, and then to see this Leon. I wanted to share with you this great news that we might find out!", he said excitedly about his findings at The Pits.

"We can still share whatever buddy, but indeed, WE didn't make any advance in the investigation together. You did it alone!" Starsky gestured.

"We, Starsky. You and me. Remember we're a duo, that we work together? Used to, at least... for the past thirteen years?" Hutch said instantly. The meaning of his words was bigger than what they can express. "Anyhow…" he continued, "I planned to go and talk to this Leon again tomorrow and get our, OUR, offer to him! As I said, I'm still using the first person of the plural. We. We, Starsk" Hutch said emotively.

Starsky bowed his head.

He felt that Hutch was right, and he was ashamed. Hutch realized and stopped scolding him. He couldn't hold it against his buddy for so long, so he told him, "I've already talked to the Cap, Starsk, and he told me about that crazy idea of yours concerning the Star Wars theory and your strange trip to UCLA! What are you gonna do there?" the blond said more relaxed.

"A hunch! What else?" Starsky said as if nothing, raising his eyebrows while Hutch nodded.

"A hunch? At UCLA?" He felt that he had all the reasons to mistrust him, but he decided that he wouldn't keep pushing.

"Maybe. But why Dontcha tell me about this Leon? I'm freaking curious" Starsky said trying to divert…

Hutch sighed. "As I said, we have an excellent opportunity to nail Parry," he finished professionally. Hutch decided to keep talking, and he put the knife he was using to chop the vegetables over Starsky's chest, making him looked frightened, Hutch realized and took it out of him. "We should only determine the extent of the deal with this snitch… And just like that," he snapped his fingers, "we can get the bastard nailed! It's a pity we won't be together to ask more questions." Hutch said sarcastically, just couldn't help it.

It was a weird feeling; sometimes the blond-haired man felt rejected lately and he couldn't help the sarcasm, so he reassumed his task at the cutting board though his lack of enthusiasm was evident.

"I didn't say that I won't be there, Hutch," Starsky charmed his partner with his childish manners and Hutch grumbled. Starsky looked at Sam, wondering if next day, after going to Memorial, he would be up to it and the doctor nodded, so he continued explaining to his partner. "I'm telling you I'll be there. I won't spend the whole day at UCLA buddy, by the time you've got to see this Leon, I'll be with you, okay? Hutch? Hey!"

"Okay!" Hutch opened his arms again while Starsky reassumed his task at the pot.

"But tell me, Mr. America, how that would be? How can we nail him?" Starsky asked forgetting his ploy, excited and dipping the bread into the stew again.

"Knowing the exact day this wacko would go to the Central Library to return a book he borrowed past week." Hutch raised the knife as a teacher did with his pointer stick, full of enthusiasm at the possibility to catch the killer and so did with his eyebrows and winked.

"That stupid?" the Brunet said thunderstruck.

"That stupid" Hutch answered in return.

"That's fantastic buddy… Sam?" The brunet looked all excited at the doctor who was speechless beside them. Full of joy Starsky made one compact and precise movement and with certainty, assured. "I think that beginning tomorrow, things are gonna get better and better, aren't they, doc?" He raised his glass of wine and said hopefully.

Starsky winked at Sam.

Reminded him of the secret deal they shared.

They all continued talking about the case, the official offer and Starsky's weird travel to UCLA alone in the search for yet another secret evidence related to the space race, the NASA, Stars Wars or whatever…

Hutch tried to convince him, that it would be better if they'd go together to the University, by all means. And Starsky insisted that the reason Dobey had set the whole scenario was that Hutch would be more useful than he would be at the Station.

"In case you didn't notice, buddy I had never had a good relationship with the Brass." he had insisted and had said bluntly.

"Oh, come on Starsk! I am not stupid enough, no shit Sherlock…! You wanna play solo? Okay. I know that you're a terrible partner, but you're not the most stupid either so I don't think that if you come with me, you're gonna spoil anything."

The blond had said and made a face.

Hutch wasn't convinced about what Starsky was saying.

In fact, he didn't buy anything that Starsky was telling him lately, but that was the way things had been for the last fifteen days at least. That's why he decided he wouldn't complain at all; he decided that he wouldn't ruin the moment so he would pretend like everything was okay, as he was doing the past days.

Besides, he realized that manage the superiority to offering something economically attractive to Leon and convincing him that he must give out the information was his task. Only his.

Undoubtedly.

Though Starsky wasn't silly, that was his work, it was not his partner's task.

"After all, who is the brains of this duo?" he convinced himself.

That way, it had always been.

Starsky even reminded Hutch that he had never had a positive relationship with Reasoner, and most especially after Rigger's fiasco, and that was evenly true.

That's why Hutch would be negotiating with the police leadership the amount of the reward the brass would offer to the soon to be a snitch. And the brunet would be more useful at UCLA trying to find another clue to the investigation.

He convinced himself, hoping Leon would give them a good hint.

The whole settled sounded pretty reasonable… well, sort of, because when Starsky went into the bathroom Hutch put the knife on the cutting board again, flabbergasted and asked straight to Sam in a subtle voice.

"Hey! I want to talk to you Sam; I need to." The blond said hurriedly and quietly and continuously peeking into the bathroom's direction just in case Starsky showed up. "I can't stand this anymore, It keeps happening! I've already talked to you about it, and I've been trying to reach you all day. It's just Starsky, again, dammit!"

_"He is suspicious… "_ Sam thought, the blond continued talking in a frenzy.

"He keeps on pushing me aside, avoiding me! Nothing's changed, and now… Worse than ever! He even wants to get me out of the case! Of Parry's case of all things? For Christ's sake! Playing solo? He? He has the most extraordinary ability to piss me off. He knows damn well that I can't work without him and that he can't work without me at this point, so what this solo thing he keeps on saying as if nothing? Like everything's okay? He's bloody mean with me lately, man… Because he knows, I can't do it. We can't do it." He sounded dazed and powerless, and also alarmed and scared.

The dependency he had managed to develop toward Starsky really worried Sam.

The doctor didn't know how he could help Hutch cope with it, especially in the future since as long as he had just witnessed; the future might be grim.

So he decided to find the right words.

He decided he should be loyal to his word to Starsky so he won't tell him about the recent situation that had happened with the brunet at the Precinct but, at the same time, he swore to assure the blond man that he would take on to unravel what was truly going on with their friend.

He owes that to both of them.

_"A difficult task, if there was any",_ Sam thought.

But they were his friends, so he said aloud and firmly. "Calm down Hutch, I've been there at Metro and that's true! Dobey wants him out for tomorrow, all day! I Dunno, we all know Curly here, he could be… unmanageable? So he wants him out of the picture in the negotiation with the Chief! That's all! But I understand what you're saying, and I promise, as much as for tomorrow we'll know what's going on, okay? Promise"

Hutch nodded, said yes mutely while Starsky got out of the bathroom, and he retook his position at the stew.

When Starsky got out, Sam could tell that something had happened. He looked different, actually different.

The brunet's eyes were vacant, and so was his stare. He looked worried but Hutch, feeling at the blame, also, immediately returned to his chores, distractedly and didn't notice. Didn't pay attention to his buddy, so busy in trying to hide his own feelings.

_"I was wondering how many promises I should have to keep… How many secrets might be needed,"_ Sam secretly thought. "Hey, you look edgy what happened?" the doctor made a face and whispered softly into Starsky's ear, without Hutch noticing, wondering what was going on with him.

The Brunet gave no answer and only shook his head no.

Anyway, the doctor realized that something had happened in the bathroom, something that his friend just couldn't digest. He also realized that Starsky had decided to hide it.

The brunet went straight to the stove where Hutch was still standing and motioned him to shut up.

"Mhm… This is terrific, Hutch! This smells so good! You get better and better every passing day!" Starsky was ostensibly chewing while he put a morsel of food in the mouth that he took out of the platter, he asked as if nothing had happened… but Sam knew.

"Yeah, I know I'm an excellent cook" Hutch outrageously admitted.

"Oh sure, excellent and modest!" Starsky added funnily.

"Okay, I won't argue with that! Starsky here told me that your Paul Muni Special equals that from his mother, and I've been privileged to enjoy Mrs. Starsky's culinary skills during past Hanukkah in New York. So I think that you are great for sure, and the truth is, it looks incredibly yummy blondie!" Sam added directly, his eyes still on Starsky trying to find out what had been that wrong in the bathroom.

"Thank you, Sam, you're welcome. Anyway, Starsky about this Leon, I need to tell you about him, remember?"

"Oh yeah, I remember, of course, I do but Hutch lemme tell ya something, buddy." He put his hands around Hutch's shoulders and said, "Today's just a very special day for me," he cast eyes over Sam, "And for all of us. How long since we have been together like this, haven't we? I mean … I don't feel like talking about the case right now!" He filled his lungs deeply, "Don't feel like talking about work either, it's been tough enough. The day I mean, hasn't it?" He shared a knowing wink.

"Certainly, Starsky" Sam hurried to say... _"You don't fool me, buddy, you tell me! Something has happened in that Bathroom minutes ago, and it did bother you"_, Sam thought.

"Ok, if you insist," Hutch said downcast and regained his chores at the stove.

He felt yet another rejection on Starsky's behalf.

Of course, it wasn't Starsky's choice, not that he wanted to reject him but yet, the brunet couldn't find a way to explain his attitude.

A few minutes later Hutch said, "Dinner's ready, siddown everybody."

Those were his last words.

"Yeah, the show must go on," was Starsky's ironic retort.

_"And the hell it must go on,"_ Doctor Sam Ressler thought.

And they started eating in silence.

**ACT 10 - MEMORIAL AGAIN -**

The little chubby and redhead doctor who had saved his life four years ago was excited to see him, and it showed.

He always had been very fond of Starsky; he was more than a patient to him.

The cop had been a challenge so far, and a loving person he had been happy to helping recover.

"David, long time no see!" He hugged him; he loved the young man from the bottom of his heart.

"Yeah, hi Doc, Robert" they held their hands. "Yeah… long time...!" Starsky felt confused, happy and sad at the same time to see the doctor and grimaced in frustration. "I wish I would have stayed without seeing you longer anyway," He smiled and nodded goofily.

He intended to make a silly remark, but he realized it hadn't worked.

Sometimes, he knew he wasn't very gifted when it came to words.

"David, that sounds rude," the Doctor said pretending to look annoyed, yet he knew he couldn't seem serious with this extraordinary, incredible man.

"Oh, I'm sorry! It's not like I don't wanna see ya. I don't want to, uh..." Starsky sighed and took a deep breath; he felt like he was going to regret it, but he must do it, he just had to tell the truth. "What can I say? I don't wanna see you again on a daily basis, and I'm afraid that after today, well… after today, we'll be pretty close again for some time!" He shook his head and raised his eyebrows.

Goodman hesitated, "Meaning?" He nodded bitterly and motioned him to take a seat. "Sit down, David, please. I guess that we should talk. Something's wrong?"

"Yeah," Starsky took a big mouthful of air and say, "Yeah, something's wrong. I can feel it," He shrugged bitterly and squeezed his hands "I mean well I… I ain't feeling very hot lately, you know, I uh... I was trying to hide it and ignored it for some time. It's been a while, a long time indeed, more than a month, sort of, but I can't do it, not anymore, actually."

The patient stood and went to the window, lost his sight through it. He was nervous, and he felt frightened. Since the symptoms had started, almost two months ago, he had been scared, and he knew, he felt that something was wrong with him. Starsky took a deep breath filling his lungs again. The burning and the acuity he had been experiencing in his chest lately left him dizzy. He staggered and closed his eyes in a pained grimace. He barely held himself to the stretcher that was below the window. "I'm feeling sick, and I don't know what to do with Hutch, Bob. That scares the hell outta me, and that's all!" Starsky finished bluntly.

"Hutch?" Goodman frowned. "We can discuss Hutch later, but you! What are you feeling, David? Are you hurting badly? Tell me, kid". The doctor knew about their legendary friendship, they would have plenty of time to talk about the impact the news could cause over Hutch but later.

"Yeah…" He winced. "I hurt all over, and all the time I get tired. When I wake up when I run... when I go to bed!" He clenched his teeth and attempted to make a little smile "I'm scared, doc. I'm terrified, really terrified this time. One month ago, only hurt me when I was running; now I can't run or take a flight of stairs either since I tire very easily. And it hurts damn much. Now the pain is constant, all day, all the time and I'm afraid..."

"Hey, son… Come on, David, sit down." Goodman interrupted him. The doctor worried, he knew his patient and never had seen him so crestfallen before.

Starsky turned his face again to the Doctor's desk and got back to the chair.

"You don't have to be scared!" Bob Goodman said, "I'm here!" He winked to his most favorite patient. "After all that we've been through together, you don't trust me? I, we just… We must put to work and see what's going on, okay? We'll take care, you don't have to worry, all right?"

Starsky nodded like a little kid entirely delivered to the doctor's words; to this man, who also inspired him all the confidence that came with their history through the years.

"Thanks, Bob. I've been a fool I didn't come here to see you before, been a fool I've been in pain until now", he said fully trusted in his doctor.

"It's okay, don't berate yourself, it's no use. Let's get to the point and tell me; you're hurting, all right? Where?" the doctor asked professionally.

"My chest. Here." Starsky grimaced in pain when he put his hand on his chest, his solar plexus most precisely. "It hurts so much, Bob… I, it's been pretty difficult for me to breathe lately."

"And you've been experiencing some other troubles besides your breathing? Sam Ressler called me, and he explained me everything that happened yesterday though I never imagined that you were going to contact me by proxy…" Now the doctor sounded pretty annoyed.

"Bob, I'm sorry; I should've called you before. I should've come here before. Yes, I know, but not the best of my memories are harbored here. These walls for me, you know, still find them oppressive. I'm sorry… I've been trying to dodge this place since you've discharged me!" In fact, he hated Memorial and everything that it represented.

"Oh yeah, I can understand that son, but it's been… Wait a minute, how long ago since you were gunned down?" Goodman asked pensively.

"Four complete and entire years!" Starsky scratched his nape and sighed at the memory; he never felt comfortable remembering Gunther and everything else. "It's been in May '79…"

"Four years and you're still safe and sound, see?" The Doctor chuckled, making a joke and trying to encourage him "That long! We did a helluva great work with you, David, and it's been a long time ago, which reminds me that... Lemme see, here!" the doctor started rummaging through the old files and all Starsky's medical records, "I have your records here. It's been two years since you've made the last complete checkup, and that is not what I've advised you. In your situation, you should…" Bob Goodman began to scold him but stopped short in mid-sentence at the image of the frightened young man who was in front of him.

Starsky looked like a five-year-old boy.

_"Hell! It's no use now; I better repair the damage that's been made,"_ Goodman thought. "I mean I've told you, son, that you had to make an annual checkup," he continued, "And you haven't done it! I can imagine why you are not feeling so 'hot'", he stressed the word, "as you like to say…" Now the doctor sounded angry with his patient.

"Two years went by? That long? Time flies!" The brunet tried to minimized things. He felt like a child who was being challenged by his father. "But I was feeling so good, Doc., I almost forgot about everything," he said pensively, "about Gunther, the cardiac arrest, my scarred lungs and all. It's so good to feel normal again…" he chuckled "well, that until this happened." Starsky grimaced in pain.

"So here we are. Two years without a checkup, and worst of all, you say that you kept on avoiding us until this happened!" Goodman sighed, worried. "Okay! When has this started? How long have you been "dodging" us since this began, as you like to say?", the doc couldn't help but feel outraged about Starsky's disregard.

"Well, maybe one month ago? When I started feeling not so swell, maybe two months?"

The brunet made a face and said sadly and ashamed.

Dr. Robert Goodman shook his head in disbelief and filled his lungs.

According to Starsky's medical history, such time without any check up proved to be very complicated and difficult to face. Now, the fact that he was feeling ill for so long worsened the whole situation

"I wish I can kill you with my own hands, David, but I'm sure I'd regret it. Or worse, that If I do it, my utmost respect for human life would repugnant to my Hippocratic Oath!, but two months' a hell of a lot of time" He said and shook his head, concerned. "Why did you wait that long? You are as stubborn as always! That you are! Being strong-willed helped you in your recovery in the past, but stubbornness has to be well administered. It seems like you evidently believe that you're immortal!" The doctor snarled, and Starsky lost his stare on the floor.

Someone knocked at the door.

"May I?" Sam poked his head through the doorway "Hi, Robert."

"Good Morning, Sam. It's so good to see you!" Dr. Goodman stood up as Starsky did the same, they both greeted Sam.

"Hi, buddy," he patted Starsky on his left shoulder and winked at him. Starsky reciprocated but still felt very ashamed.

"Hi, Sam" the patient looked expectantly at him and gave him a curious glance raising his eyebrows as he grimaced with his mouth. He was very nervous and anxious; he cleared his voice, his raspy voice.

"Take your seat, Sam," Goodman offered him a chair; "you were saying David; it's been two months since you're experiencing this shortness in your breathing."

_"Two months?"_ Sam mutely asked himself and shook his head; he also felt like he wanted to kill Starsky.

Goodman kept talking "Any other symptoms?" He asked casually and saw Starsky opening his eyes, wondering what he meant with 'other symptoms.' The doctor realized, so he continued explaining "I mean like persistent chest pain, weakness, fatigue, any loss of weight or appetite, intermittent fever, difficulty swallowing, coughing up blood…?" He put the pen in his mouth. The physician was also anxious.

"Well," Starsky opened his eyes, "That's a very impressive list of symptoms" he smiled shyly, "but uh… Yeah, mostly all of them. Almost all of them I - I've been experiencing lately all of them I guess." He nodded regretfully, "Although I still have my appetite," he smiled, "sometimes's very difficult for me to swallow, I don't know why. It's weird, yeah…"

"You coughed up blood Starsky?" Sam frowned shocked and concernedly, _"Please tell me you didn't, buddy..."_ the psychiatrist begged silently to his friend to give him a negative response.

"Yeah, yeah just yesterday. It was the first time. Remember when I got into the bathroom at my place? You asked me what was wrong. Well, that was when it happened. I - I did. I coughed up blood for the first time" he said worriedly.

Starsky's voice was smaller and smaller every passing sentence.

There was a thick, long and intolerable silence after that.

"Okay, All Right." Dr. Goodman put his right hand over his mouth and searched for Ressler's sight behind his desk and away from Starsky. "We're going to run some tests, Chest RX and a CT scan beginning now… A full, complete clinical examination will be due at uh... lemme see? At 11 AM, and tomorrow… you ain't fasting, are you? I need you to at least 12 hours without eating." Starsky grimaced no; "Tomorrow we'll take the blood samples, okay? You're gonna stay here all day and today's night, until the morning."

"No! I can't" Starsky stood up angrily, "I can't stay here... Hutch, Hutch doesn't even know that I'm here. I can't possibly stay."

The brunet began to pace all around Goodman's Consulting Office and started getting very nervous, and his agitation increased when he found no support either in Goodman nor Sam. Both of them were silently looking at him without modifying their decision about his medical discharge.

"Starsky, I've told you that we can discuss Hutch later, okay?" Goodman said gravely, anticipating the outcome.

The veteran Doctor knew about the tight bond between the two men.

He was aware that it had been Hutch the reason his patient had come back to the future, after death itself, when he arrested a long time ago. He also knew that after having given everything to support Starsky in his painful recovery, the blond man had spiraled down into a long and silent depression; that Hutch was scared, that he lived in fear that something bad might happen to his pal again. That for some time he got lost in the aftermath of sorrow and pain that almost took him out of the Police Force.

That Hutch's state of mind was fragile, to say the least.

The Hell he knew.

He also knew that after that, it had been Starsky's unbounded optimism, strength, and love that had helped the blond to survive the tragedy.

Hutch also came back to his future after everything.

Hutch's emotional hangover was as wreckers, as Starsky's physical and irrecoverable damage had been._ "But first things first"_, he thought. They could deal with Hutch's state of mind later since Starsky's health was the number one priority. Definitely.

"You call him and tell him what's going on or you forget about him until tomorrow, okay?" Sam hurried to say.

Starsky realized that he was alone, with no endorsement. He started wheezing and panting, frantically and Sam also realized that he was getting increasingly anxious and out of breath.

"Starsky! Try to calm down, David! We need you here, under observation for at least the next 24 hours" Goodman sighed.

"Under observation? Whaddaya mean under observa...tion?" he shouted. The brunet was agitated; his chest rose up and down frantically. "You ain't gonna hook me to anything else in my life again! I had enough of that. Oh no! Not again. I mean I won't stay here, not for a minute! I don't know what I'm gonna say to…" he started coughing, and he just couldn't stop.

"Easy, easy, relax buddy, calm down... We're gonna sort things out with Hutch, okay? Just take it easy, take it easy." Sam coaxed him just to get him into his ploy, the hell he had no other choice whatsoever.

Starsky felt so dejected that he closed his eyes, breathing with a lot of pain. The pain was just unbearable, and he had no strength left in him to fight them either.

They put him on the gurney that was in Bob's office.

Sam gave him a shot with a sedative, another dose of Albuterol and after a few minutes, without any resistance, he let them wheeled him toward room 325. He was going to rest all day until the next day while they pricked him, monitored him, examined him and reviewed his medical records one more time.

Again and again, abusing him mercilessly, as if he was back, after Gunther…

He wanted to disappear, to fade away.

He felt useless and spent, and Starsky closed his eyes.

_"Oh God! Not again,"_ he thought… And he drifted into a grievous slumber so tiredly and frail.

He would stay that way for a long time; he hurt less that way all along.

He could stay that way forever…

_"It's very inviting,"_ Starsky couldn't help but think.

***********************S&H**************************

"Where's he? Don't tell me he needs all day to have an appointment with the fucking UCLA dean of physical sciences? What are they talking about? Quantum physics? Starsky can't stand a conversation related to physics except when it comes to the way two bodies interact in bed!"

Hutch sounded pedantic as ever, and he was belittling his partner, with that traditional and strange little way he had to tell Starsky that he was absolutely necessary for Hutch just to breathe. Without Starsky, he hurt all over though he tried to pretend.

"I can't contact him, Cap!" the flaxen-haired man continued. "He doesn't answer! Neither through dispatch nor at his home even at the Pits! Where the hell is he, Captain? I thought that maybe, maybe he could make it on time, and he would come with me to see this Leon, he promised!" Hutch was furious and sad, too.

"Calm down Hutch! It's only half past two, and you should go to the Pits at 5 in the afternoon! Maybe he'll make it on time there."

Dobey tried to sound reasonable though he knew he wasn't saying to Hutch what he wanted to hear. And worst of all, he knew he wasn't telling him the truth at all; that Starsky was in the Hospital, that he had fainted the day before, and that he couldn't breathe. "You know Starsky! He's so eager to reach the bottom of this case and find the truth that all his willpower's directed to that, and he has those crazy hunches…"

"Which is why I'm so so worried he's not here yet! Yeah, I know him, Cap, I know him and that's why I'm so angry! I used to be part of his hunches, I knew his suspicions beforehand; I used to be a part of that equation. I've always been the first one to know about his feelings and ideas. He chose me among everybody else, more than fifteen years ago to be his partner because he trusted me all his hunches! And also he believed in me! And this afternoon... if he can't make it in time," Hutch shook his head in disbelief, "if he can't come with me, I don't know; maybe I should start searching for a new partner!" the blond-haired man's voice sounded hopeless somehow.

"Don't be drastic, Hutch!" was Dobey's retort.

"I am not drastic! I'm just-just realistic! Something's broken, Cap. And I think I won't ever be capable of fixing it. I have this feeling…" He shook his head; he couldn't understand why this sense of fear was invading his entire soul. He felt uneasy. "I gotta go now; I don't know what's going on with him, with us. But something's broken. Pretty soapy yeah… as he would've loved to say, but it's sad to me. Anyway, I have work to do. See ya!"

He finished the conversation, angry.

After Hutch hung up the phone call, Dobey immediately called Memorial trying to get to Sam or Goodman or even Starsky himself and find out what was going on.

It had been more than three hours that he didn't know anything about his officer.

He was transferred to Starsky's room.

***************************S&H****************************

"Hello?" Sam's voice sounded despondent.

"Ressler, this is Dobey. What's going on, how's Starsky?" Besides Hutch's mood, he felt himself the urgency to find his own answers and now.

"Hello, Captain Dobey. He's sleeping again now. We gave him some sedatives so he can rest and recover, we've made a quick PFT, and right now we're checking how his lungs are working."

Dobey made a long pause, gathering his feelings of helplessness, "And…? you think this is something related to his lungs?" Dobey shook his head, "Damn Gunther! After 4 years… And what's that mean?"

"Yes, we actually believe he's suffering from a respiratory failure of some sorts. I mean, we are testing how much air his lungs can hold, how quickly he can move the air in and out of them and the CO2 level and oxygen exchange." It was Ressler's turn to make such an eternal pause, he sighed. "But it doesn't look good at all Captain, it doesn't seem any good," he said grimly.

"Whaddaya mean it doesn't look good, Sam?"

"Well, just that…" he sighed, he was at a loss for words and worried "His stats are all wrong, Captain."

"He'll pull through, Ressler; you know Starsky, he's as stubborn as anyone can be… he'll pull through."

"I wish that stubbornness is all that he needs now, but I'm afraid that this time he will need more than his will to overcome this situation."

Dobey frowned.

"Hey, there's no need to be that melodramatic, Sam, come on! He's at the Hospital, and you're gonna perform everything that's required to make him recover, to help him feel better… uh…"

Only silence came in return.

The news was stunning, and the Captain didn't want to know anymore, so, he didn't ask anything else. What Sam was implying, it just couldn't be. _"What did he say? Did the doctor say that Starsky was sick? That he was going to be even sicker than he had been before, that everything was wrong? It couldn't be, the brunet's tough, very tough… and young and stubborn and he's endured everything in the past, why shouldn't he now?"_ the captain thought, so he pretended that he hadn't heard anything. Dobey decided to ignore Ressler's grim responses and continued. "Sam, when he wakes up, would you please tell him to contact Hutch, as soon as possible? He's very impatient, and I don't think that I would be able to contain him anymore."

"Okay, I'll do. But, just for the record Captain, what did you tell Hutch? He can't know what's going on, for now; that's a given."

"Nothing, I didn't tell him anything. Just that he's still at UCLA. But I'm sure that he didn't believe me, I know! So one phone call I mean, listening to Starsky would do better than one hundred words, you got it?"

"Okay, Captain. I'll keep you posted, and I'll tell Starsky to get to Hutch when he wakes up!"

"Okay Sam, give that pigheaded of my officer my kind regards," he said as if nothing… "Tell him I love him… Oh no, you better don't tell him anything, there's just a short step from his well-deserved self-righteousness to his big headed self-esteem."

Dobey laughed and hung.

_"Oh Dobey, man you can't accept it either. There's none as deaf as he who will not hear",_ Sam thought.

When the conversation finished, and the doctor hung up the receiver, he stood and went to look through the window, and suddenly he felt Starsky's eyes all over him.

"Hey buddy, you're awake?"

He didn't realize how long he had been awake if he had heard anything he had talked with his Captain.

Starsky shook his head and clenched his teeth, choking back a sob, he then nodded.

"Have you heard?" Sam asked him.

The sick man nodded again and closed his eyes, a bitter tear came down to his face.

"It's okay, Starsky. We're just ruling out possibilities, we don't know anything yet for certain." Sam finished, he didn't know what else to say.

"No worries. Gimme the telephone. I'll see what I can do with Hutch. Better we take care of what's still okay" Starsky stretched his hand to grab the mouthpiece and sat down with not a little effort on the mattress. His back was killing him.

"Hutch, pal, It's me. You won't believe what I have to tell you…"

**************************S&H****************************

The way in which Starsky was able to convince Hutch for so many things had always been a mystery to everybody who happened to share their extraordinary friendship. It had mesmerized all of them since the very beginning of their unique partnership. To pretend to give the exact content of such delivery of affection was impossible. Somehow, the huge mutually professed admiration they shared, the immense respect they had from each other, were what ultimately facilitated the magical communication they had. For all of their friends and fellow officers, who heard them and saw them interact, their relationship was the epitome of trust and loyalty.

A gift of brotherly love that it was poignant to witness.

Starsky hung up the receiver and explained to Sam, "I've told him I had to go to Santa Barbara. That I have to follow one professor from UCLA, which could indeed be involved in a government operation..." He regretted having to lie to his friend, but then he said, "That was the first place that came to my mind! Santa Barbara of all places!" he shook his head, disillusioned with his own betrayal. "He said that finally today's rendezvous with this guy Leon's not gonna happen. He told me that Huggy called to the Station and stated that the man had his kid sick so that he wouldn't make it to the Pits today. Looks like he's got an appointment with the pediatrician…" He shrugged. "So I've told him that tomorrow, we'll go together to meet him, and that reassured him, calmed him. Sam?" Starsky asked worriedly "I'll be able to go tomorrow, won't I…? I - I'll be discharged?"

"Of course, Starsky, after they take the blood samples you're gonna be discharged tomorrow, promise" were Sam's last words.

This time Starsky offered to Hutch a lame excuse and asked for a promise for tomorrow.

Tomorrow they would have all the answers.

Tomorrow they were going to know where to stand and what was going to happen.

**ACT 11 – D.O.A-**

The next day on June 8, Starsky was finally discharged from the Hospital early in the morning. Dr. Goodman told him that he should get back and check on Memorial next Tuesday when the results of all the exams they had performed over him would be ready.

He gave Starsky a full box of Albuterol just in case he needed them again to fight another respiratory crisis and advised him to avoid straining, do anything risky, running or much less get tired.

The brunet went to the Camaro that was parked at the spot where he had left it the day before at the Hospital lot and went straight to the Precinct.

He felt reasonably safe, breathing easier; undoubtedly his staying at the Hospital and the medicines they gave him seemed to have lessened some of the nasty symptoms he had been experiencing lately. 

"You're early," Hutch said surprised when he arrived at Metro and found Starsky already sat on his desktop and drinking a mug of black and hot coffee that he was holding in his left hand.

"You're late!" Starsky said relieved and happy to see his partner again, "I've been here since" he took a look at his wristwatch "7.30" he added.

"7.30? So, why didn't you come home and picked me up then? It wasn't that early!" Hutch said suspiciously.

"Came straight from the beach and well, I didn't want to wake you up or interrupt your morning jog." Starsky shrugged and said distractedly.

"So you stayed in Santa Barbara for the night? Looks like you took a getaway there instead of pursuing a hunch! I bet you even had an excellent time too!" Hutch said wryly while poured some coffee, "Boy, you were with a chick too?" he moved his head wondering if it could have been possible, as Huggy had suggested, that Starsky had overcome his fears, finally.

"Nah, not at all, besides the way you're saying it, what? You jealous?" Starsky laughed and shook his head in disbelief, the whole conversation sounded for him surreal, to say the least. It never felt natural to him to lie to anybody, let alone to Hutch, and this was by far the worst and the biggest lie he had already told anyone in his whole life. "I went to this motel, you know, the one in which we lodged when we had that incident with that guy Alex."

Hutch grimaced. He didn't remember whom Starsky was talking about.

"The CIA wannabe agent whose wife got killed six years ago?" the brunet tried to clarify.

Hutch nodded and added "Speaking about Feds, Government, and Star Wars, uh?"

"Yeah." Starsky laughed "I stayed there all night. And you won't believe it. Room 39, remember? The same room we've been in back then. Though the little man in the corner wasn't there this time" they both laughed at the memory of the short and creepy secret agent who was suspicious of everything and even of them.

"So you came back empty," Hutch asked, hesitating whether believe that or not. What his partner was telling him sounded more than an undercover operation than anything else.

"Yeah, the man was clean. I came empty, and with my stomach empty too. I was hungry! was more than 15 hours without putting anything in my tender stomach, so I decided to stop by," he shrugged, "rested a bit and ate something!. And since I was pretty tired, and the traffic was a bit sticky on the way down here yesterday I stayed for the night. In the morning, and since I woke up so early and the weather was such a diaphane one, well… I took the PCH instead. The vistas are worth a try."

"Yeah, I can figure it out. Any trouble up there?" Hutch started drinking his mug of coffee.

"Aside from the fact that there always seems to be construction on 101? Nope … zip! Zero." Starsky said all business and trying to let the issue sank into oblivion since he had nothing left to add to the lie.

"You kidding? You're a joke! I wasn't referring to the route… Or traffic. I mean if you found out something there in Santa Barbara related to the case and this" Hutch waved his hands grandly, "weird feeling you've experienced with the Dean and this professor… Was he? A teacher? What was his name?"

"What?" Starsky had to think fast… "_The professor's name? Damn it! Didn't think about it… My sophomore year, yeah!"_ He thought. "Oh. Price, yeah. That's his name. Price" and he smiled with relief.

"What? Price?" Hutch asked.

"Yep, Price!" Starsky smiled embarrassed and kept talking anyway, "But, unfortunately, there was nothing, so far. Like I said, empty! But I've been thinking of something that maybe… I Dunno" he shook his head and tried to deceive him, which was another lie. He wasn't thinking of anything related to the case, indeed.

The investigation was at a standstill from Monday when Starsky collapsed in the Squad room since, sadly, he hadn't been able to worry about anything further beyond his health issues. That alone, he didn't feel good enough to think, and he was tired, so damned tired all the time.

"Oh yeah? And what that would be, would you mind telling me?" Hutch said ironically; he was sick of Starsky's riddles. He wanted confirmations, certainties, and he wanted them now!

And Starsky realized.

So he tried to backtrack.

He retrieved the path that he had been walking lately, steadily; unfolded all the information that he had followed to find the answer to the investigation; a response that didn't sound like an excuse.

He should get more creative about it.

He knew he should talk about the case; he had a vested interest to speak about the case rather than about anything else related to him.

Rather than giving Hutch the chance to ask anything else about him.

"Listen," the brunet closed his eyes like in a trance, and suddenly, he was all business.

"Back in the '60s, there have been seven crimes. All of them perpetrated between the 1st March 1965 and the 28th August 1966." Starsky said excited and as if he was unveiling a universal truth.

"Starsky, we've been talking about this since the very first day we have this assignment, so? What's the new hunch you're pursuing?" Hutch asked with arrogance, as usual.

But Starsky didn't seem to notice what he was saying. He looked like being in a stupor. He needed to concentrate on the investigation, and he appeared to have all absence of response to external stimuli, so he kept talking.

"… Two, on the 1st March, two on the 5th June, two on the 28th August. All of them during the years of '65 and '66. Just one on the 20th November 1965". He stopped and shrugged. "Look at this file. See the dates?" Starsky opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows to Hutch.

"We've already found out this buddy, in case you forgot. I remind you that this was the reason you were so angry past Monday" Hutch said.

"I know Hutch!" he almost shouted. "What I want you to see is that this is the same circle, just the same dates today, mirrored, 18 years later... and that's a pretty big resemblance!" he raised his eyebrows

"So?" Hutch repeated and said by subtracting importance. Starsky squinted and closed his eyes typically as induced by hypnosis or entered by a medium. Sometimes, Starsky thought that Hutch could be a whimsical stubborn who did not want to budge, didn't mean to admit how talented his partner was, but then he loved him anyway.

"Well, that's not minor, Hutch! I say as a result of all this, we can positively affirm that the next crime, the last one, is gonna happen on next August the 28th. After Koreatown, we're sure."

Hutch just nodded.

And then Starsky started feeling it, thunderstruck.

The realization that all the data they had compiled fitted correctly. They locked their eyes.

The truth had always been there waiting to be unrevealed. "_David, the same pattern. Dates, the same pattern. It's in the dates or is it in their names? The clue should be either in the dates or their names!"_ The Brunet thought.

Starsky was surprised with himself. "_Hey, that was really a good idea… How come I didn't come up with this before? How could I've been so stupid?"_ He thought. They had never thought that those dates and resemblances had to be linked to the present assassinations before; the coincidental names were the key. Looked like someone was dictating him these facts now, the similarities just slipped out of his mouth rapidly.

He couldn't stop. _"Ok, this is it, but the connection… which one's the connection?"_

Starsky frowned and shook his head, Hutch could barely follow, but he let Starsky carry on while frantically began to unroll the map of Los Angeles County. _"Here, it must be here, yes!"_ Starsky saw the map, intently. "There must be another similarity Hutch. We just have to find it. I need more information, gimme Parry's file. The new ones I requested. Now!" Starsky was a blur of energy, he was frantic. Hutch followed.

"New ones? Starsky it's been more than one year we've been lurking over that file, and we never found anything at all," Hutch said bluntly.

"That's not it, Hutch. They restored Folsom's archive, the data that were microfilmed by the government before the arson took place. I phoned the Penitentiary and asked for Parry's new restored files. That's what I was trying to get from Minnie the other day. They sent them to R&I a few weeks ago." Starsky winked his eye to his buddy.

"Good," Hutch said surprised. "Sometimes you use your head for anything more than hair."

"Thanks," Starsky only said.

"You're welcome, " and they both laughed. "So let's work, buddy, but… How did you know? About the restoration project, I mean. Dobey informed you?" Hutch asked curiously.

"Nope. I heard it on the radio."

"Life can be very weird, partner," Hutch said and made a face of disbelief.

Starsky began flipping through the pages of the file "Hey, he was born on March 11th, 1943? How disgusting, we're the same age… We were born the same year and month! Lemme take a look at this!"

"What? We got a picture?" Hutch asked, and Starsky barely answered.

"Nah… 'S confusing. Hutch! Get to Sam's notes." He asked his partner.

One by one they marked the places where the crimes had occurred, now, and back in 1965/66.

All different neighborhoods of the city, all of them different. "_Which is the connection? There should be a connection"._

Starsky scribbled the victim's names, each one of them began with one letter, forming one word, the same pattern, the seven crimes.

Seven. Seven letters. Seven crimes, seven neighborhoods, seven letters.

The only difference the different places because the names coincided, always. The names. "David, but…"

They had to find out the connection that let them fix the pattern and maybe just maybe, that way they could be able to determine where the next crime was going to be.

Maybe, just maybe, also... even who, the next victim was going to be.

They knew that the 1st March, the Welsh people celebrate St. David's day. According to the significance that that name had in the old crimes and in these new ones, that was a fact of itself. They also knew that the 5th of June was the day Parry's been imprisoned the first time when he was a young boy and that the 20th of November was the day he'd been convicted.

They didn't know how did the 28th August fit in all that crap, besides the disgusting fact that it happened to be Hutch's Birthday and…

"Hutch, wait, Hutch… I have something here!" Starsky said illuminated.

Starsky went through the files from R&I and the new ones from Folsom, once again.

He started looking among all of them, more dates and more related data, here and there.

They found out that Madoc "Mad" Parry was accused of molestation.

He had been a voyeur, a Peeping Tom, who had been arrested when he was twenty-one years old and raped in jail by a man whose name was David.

David Who.

They knew that the guy was the son of a Welsh reverend whose name was David, too.

"David…"

They knew that, as Sam had said, Parry was seeking revenge against the responsible for his imprisonment.

They also knew that he was a repressed homosexual and definitely all in one a very repressed sexual person, according to Sam's insights. He was still a virgin; he had never been involved in any romantic relationship; his father who despised him for his condition and never accepted him was a very wealthy man. His mother had died when he was a kid. And most of all, they knew that after leaving prison, he started to weave his revenge against all the men called David.

The method of selection was very random, and that was the missing piece.

The dates were always the same, but the places weren't…

The names were the same… "_Something with their names,"_ he thought again. The clues had to be in their names.

"David, David… but…"

"I feel like my head's a whirlwind…" Starsky seemed on fire; he knew the answer was just around the corner.

"The Officers who arrested Madoc "Mad" Parry back in 1964?" the brunet mumbled and went to the file again, one more time. "It must be here, I know it must be here."

The brunet stayed perplexed at what he was reading.

"Hutch! Boy…" Starsky raised his eyes to his partner like in an epiphany. "Hutch, here it is!"

They didn't know until now that the officers who arrested Mad then, back in 64 when he was jailed because of the molestation were Harold C. Dobey and Elmo D. Jackson, Dobey's late partner. Dobey himself was the Officer, who - still in blue -, had testified against him after Elmo had passed away.

"Elmo… Hey," Hutch frowned with the file in his hands "D.O.B., August, the 28th", Hutch said… "I didn't know that Elmo was born the same day I was. Dobey never said that to me!"

"Really?" Starsky said curious, the truth was just around the corner. "Hutch" he made a long pause, suspicious "and what is the D for? He wasn't David, was he?"

Hutch pulled an incredulous look.

"Absolutely, Starsky. Elmo David Jackson."

They both shared an astonished glance and locked their eyes.

"Damn it! Jackson? Wait" Starsky said. "It's in the names…"

His face lit.

Seven letters, seven crimes…

"That's it! I got it!" His eyes were so big; he snapped his fingers. Hutch felt like sometimes the whole world could be stocked there, in Starsky's looks.

During 65/66, the seven crimes were committed in Jefferson Park, in Athens, in Chesterfield Square, in Koreatown, South Park, in the Old Bank District and Norwalk.

The brunet pinned every location on the map with tacks, methodically.

Hutch followed his every movement, closely, with his eyes tight.

He was unable to interrupt Starsky. He knew him very well; they were both thinking.

The victims were surnamed Jones, Arias, Cunningham, Keen, Sánchez, Ozil and Neuman.

All David. "The names. It was in the names."

"Each one of the crimes was committed in different neighborhoods, Hutch, all of them beginning with each letter of Jackson's surname, each victim's name coinciding with Jackson's surname's letters!"

Starsky said amazed, how he hadn't noticed before?

**J**efferson Park, **A**thens, **C**hesterfield Square, **K**oreatown, **S**outh Park, **O**ld Bank District and **N**orwalk.

**J**ones, **A**rias, **C**unningham, **K**een, **S**anchez, **O**zil, and **N**euman.

A Cop; a mechanic; a Lawyer; a boxer; a Football player; a scientist and a student.

"**JACKSON** … Yeah, Starsk!" it dawned on Hutch.

"This new set of crimes had been committed in San Pedro Harbor, Torrance South Bay, Arlington Heights, Redondo Beach, San Pedro again and Koreatown… Hutch?"

A long pause, their looks interlaced. The answer was there, pending.

According to the official records, the Officers in charge of this new investigation were Kenneth R. Hutchinson and David M. Starsky.

David Starsky.

Starsky…

**S**an Pedro, **T**orrance, **A**rlington, **R**edondo, **S**an Pedro, **K**oreatown…

3/1/82 David **S**ommers, 6/5/82 David **T**hompson, 8/28/82 David **A**ubry, 11/20/82 David** R**eynolds, 3/1/83 David **S**agay, and 6/5/83 David **K**andalevsky…

"**STARSKY..**." They said in unison.

A Cop; a mechanic; a Lawyer; a boxer; a Football player; a scientist

The last murder in Koreatown, with a K...

It must be the penultimate of the series.

Dobey was the Officer who testified against Madoc when he was a kid, and as a result of it, he was imprisoned and ultimately raped in jail.

Hutch and Jackson were born on August 28th.

Sam said that Parry was still seeking revenge toward the man who he found responsible for his breakdown. He stated that the Welsh was brilliant, that he had passed with flying colors those semesters at UCLA and that had all the money he could also need to make everything he wanted.

For Dobey, Starsky and Hutch were like his own sons.

"STARSKY… seven letters, seven crimes" Starsky stammered to the wind.

"Starsky, this is insane." Was Hutch's first reaction.

"Maybe. But I'm sure the next crime would be the 28th August, Hutch. In yours and Elmo's birthday. A student will be killed. We have to find him before that day, and we have to find where it would happen. I mean... We have to find a neighborhood whose name starts with the letter Y! And after that, Parry's connection with one student whose surname begins with a letter Y, too" Starsky raised his eyebrows, it was quite simple.

"Oh Starsk, this is crazy, there's no fucking neighborhood in the entire County, which begins with a Y! We just won't be able to figure out where it will happen. I mean, isn't it?"

Hutch had been given up before starting… sometimes he could be as cerebral as demoralizing.

"Well, the Old Bank District isn't precisely a neighborhood either. I mean it could be anywhere, Hutch. So maybe if we keep the same idea we can find something too. A clue or something! We have to keep on searching. We know that it'll be in August that it'll be a student but where, where …? Oh! My damn surname ending up with that fucking letter!"

Starsky was stunned for a moment.

He swallowed hard, suddenly he took the telephone and called Minnie again.

Ten minutes later, Tim Collins brought them Elmo's file.

A thought struck Starsky's head, "Hutch?"

"What's happening now?"

"Elmo… When did he die, Hutch?"

"Uh..." Hutch was looking back through the file that Collins had given Starsky.

"See, lemme see! God!" Hutch got surprised, he put his hand over his opened mouth.

"When, Hutch?" Patience wasn't one of Starsky's best features.

Hutch swallowed hard the knot that also had in the throat.

"When?" the brunet insisted.

"According to the Official reports, the same day of his birthday, August 28, 1966... We always accused Stryker of making a number on him but…" Hutch stopped in his tracks "What if he wasn't? What if there was never enough evidence, Starsk... And Look at this, a few days after he died his widow found a letter at Elmo's mail." They read it.

"_The 7 is a sacred number._

_Seven is the number of fullness and is flawless._

_Seven is the physical and spiritual completeness that ties us directly to God's creation among all things._

_There are seven days in the week and seven men inhabit the Old Testament._

_There are seven churches, seven angels to those seven churches and seven seals; trumpet plagues, and thunders._

_They are all mentioned in the book of Revelation and I am revealing you that Elmo has been the eighth._

_That there have been seven before him._

_I committed the seven deadly sins before._

_I did them._

_Me._

_The lust, because of my intense desire that is not yet conquered._

_Gluttony, for my excessive overindulgence._

_Greed, for condemning things eternal for the sake that temporal things possess. -I hate that I have always had more than I need but not what I really wanted-._

_Sloth, in my failure to do things that I should have done._

_Also envy, to satisfy my insatiable desire even what I should not covet since I feel miserable toward someone else's traits._

_Pride, since he was essentially better than others and most seemingly, better than me._

_And Wrath. Because I hated him and still hate you! All of you!_

_I may never acknowledge Elmo's accomplishments that's why I have these inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger, in its purest form, which presents with self-destructiveness, violence, and hate._

_To kill them, because I can't ever be like them which is why this longing may persist long after they are all dead. I'll never be like them because killing is my anger and my only choice but my hate will survive me. _

_And I'm gonna kill them, all of them, for never being mine._

_I would have loved to kill Elmo. I had since long deserved it, but I couldn't."_

They looked at each other; this was too much to take at the moment.

"We better stop these fantasies and begin with this Leon today, Starsk, maybe we can get some information from him and actually make this collar." Hutch was scared.

"I hope so, yeah!" Starsky wasn't convinced they should forget this line of inquiry. "Yeah… perhaps, we should just wait for him to go to the Library and see which book he asks for or make another move. When's our next meeting?" he continued.

"Lunchtime, at Huggy's… Let's forget about this? we can go there and maybe grab a few specials too, you know they hit the spot, have a deal?" Hutch said perturbed.

"Deal," the brunet responded, still thinking about their latest findings.

**************************S&H****************************

He knew that the last crime was going to be perpetrated on the 28th of August, but he didn't know where it would happen.

He felt like he was repeatedly stabbed in the chest, with cruelty, and he was bleeding out. He didn't know if it was because of his ill lungs or the realization that he had found something related to Parry that he didn't want to know about.

He didn't know if the oppressive feeling he was experiencing was related to his unhealthy state or the case itself. He only knew that this was final that they were reaching the end.

The fact that Elmo's name was David too, that he was born the same day that Hutch was, which he hated Dobey, the letter… so many coincidences.

Those things thrilled him and got him to his core, for some reason Starsky felt disturbed.

There wasn't any neighborhood in Bay City or in LA County which begins with the letter Y that he could actually remember so far, not at the moment.

But the word "YOU", did.

And he felt like a D.O.A.

**ACT 12 – LIFE IN 400 MCG -**

They arrived at Huggy's at 12 PM.

Anita was expecting them; the smell of the food was inviting.

"Hi Starsky, Hutch. I was waiting for you, Huggy told me that you'd be here at noon so…" she sighed thrilled at the vision of the two men, "I'm all yours…", she opened her arms in an approachable way.

The woman sure liked to flirt with them, especially with Starsky. He was just gorgeous! She caught her breath the moment when he entered the Bar and even stopped a while just to admire him and his male beauty… "_this handsome, sensitive man. He is gentle and tender and tough and virile and such fun"_. She sure had a weakness for Starsky, even was secretly in love with him, since how long? well… since forever.

"Hi, Rita!" He winked mischievously; five years had passed since she started working with Huggy, and he still liked to call her Rita. He sure loved to tease her too; that was the play they adored playing. "Hutch here says that you were improving your specials lately, and I wanna know if that's true!" He made a sexy face to her and put his hand under his chin and whispered. "You know it's been a helluva long time I ain't eating anything decent!. You think that you would be up to it, that you can feed me? Would you be able to cook me some?" He launched an air kiss closing his eyes, slowly, very very slowly.

"You heartthrob! 'M gonna give you the food right. 'M gonna put it in that cherry mouth of yours if necessary!" "_Oh man! You are dreamy,"_ she thought and sighed. "You have no cure, honey," she shook her head. "I've got this itch that only you can scratch, Starsky. The hell I will! You're gonna lick the fingers up to your bones, sweetheart. Wait just here!"

She missed him; that was true! It had been more than a month since he had gone to The Pits the last time.

He even looked different, something she just couldn't put her fingers on but…. different.

"You mean like this?" he licked his fingers as usual, but also provocatively as ever.

"You devil; you give me the goosebumps." She said and turned over her heels with disdain touching his chin, shaking her mane and leaving him laughing out loud.

Hutch shook his head and thought about scolding him, but then, refrained himself.

He knew that sometimes, in the past, he had felt unjustifiably jealous of the irresistible charm that his partner, used to have over women; sometimes in the past, he had belittled him for his seductive ways many times, but now... that was not the case right now, right now he longed for those situations to happen again.

Like in the good old days.

He missed his partner's womanizing ways, especially since the shooting.

That was just another thing Gunther had taken away from him. So this old banter with Anita thrilled him since he believed that his friend was on the mend. Hutch so much wanted to believe in that. "_Maybe Huggy's right, and he starts to be his old self again; he begins to rebuild himself,"_ the flaxen-haired man thought.

He hoped that it was what was happening.

He loved the natural frolic that Starsky used to play around with Anita or any other woman at his mercy. It was his brand sealed, so he decided to let it happen again, astonished at the way how women reacted, how women always looked so infatuated by his friend's charms. Well, as a matter of fact, after more than thirteen years as Starsky's partner, he knew about the impact his friend's personality had over everyone. His charisma was so extraordinarily irresistible that not only the weaker sex but also everybody else felt attracted to him; his devilish seduction and childlike ways were mesmerizing and Starsky could be irresistibly alluring since his attractiveness was closely linked to the light he radiated as a person and it came from his pure soul, not from his physical appearance.

He was a very special man indeed.

Half an hour later, and after Anita had served them the burgers, Huggy entered the bar through the rear entrance.

The thin man poked through the back door into the saloon to his clientele, and he surprised to find Starsky on the stool, barely eating, and distracted. The brunet was only playing with the fork on his plate. Hutch was nowhere to be seen, and Starsky was there, sat alone, leaning on the counter, like elsewhere.

The extravagant man decided to stay hidden in the kitchen, watching; peeking and analyzing the situation.

After a few moments, when Hutch reappeared from the restroom and took his place beside his partner, Huggy realized that the blond-haired man didn't seem to notice what was going on with Starsky and that was strange. He realized that Hutch was also absorbed in his plate of food and he didn't pay attention to what Starsky was doing or wasn't just doing, in fact.

Something seemed to have been broken between them.

Hutch was right, most definitely.

"That man over there," Huggy signaled with his right hand to Anita, "That over there, that's not my man Starsky!" It was his first thought, and he even voiced it aloud. "What's going on Anita? Have you talked to him, have you seen him? Something's wrong with him; he's thin and pale! Haven't you noticed? And he is not eating either!" He shook his head astonished. "What's going on?" Huggy could sense it, Hutch's words from Monday echoed in his head… "_yeah, something's wrong with Curly,"_ he thought.

"Nothing's going on! Well, aside from the fact that, well, maybe he looks a little bit … sloppy? The stubble makes him look sloppy and... deliciously sexy too." She giggled foolishly, "Yeah..." She continued pensively "But he's his usual self," she finished, "I mean we fooled around like we always do, boss. He is…" she stopped short and sighed blushing. Anita shook her head, "I didn't notice anything different, Huggy, aside from the fact that he's still as devilishly handsome as he's ever been." She twisted her apron and kept scrutinizing every single inch of the brunet's face and body from beyond.

A task she usually enjoyed undertaking.

"Oh, Anita you're a bit biased, you know? I can't trust your instincts when it comes to your favorite copper, dear!" Huggy said shaking his head no. "It's been five years," He gave her the air five. "Five entire years and those set of deep blue eyes and thick black eyelashes still affect your thinking and level of consciousness! That man over there? He could sell you the moon, and you would buy it!" Huggy said angry and winced, she shrugged, and he kept watching his friends movements. After a while, he decided he should find out and he said, reflexively. "Yeah, something's happening to him, something's wrong, and you're always so enveloped in his spell you can't realize. I'm sure that he's mad at something, and right now I'm gonna find out what it is." He said, determined to find the truth as he got out of the kitchen and went straight to the saloon.

Huggy burst through the swinging doors and aimed at the pair of detectives.

"Well, well, well, here you are! The wonder Caucasians, my most dedicated pair of the City's Finest! You're so welcome here, to my fine and humble establishment!" Starsky and Hutch laughed both and Huggy granted. "Hey, it's been a while! Long time no see you, Curly!" He patted Starsky on the shoulder. "It's been almost a month, hasn't it?"

"Almost" Starsky answered aloof.

"Hey man, you're skin and bones. What are you doing with that drop-dead gorgeous body of yours? Are you dieting? Or the blond blintz here put you on a fasting regime?" Without waiting for any response, he continued, "Oh!" Huggy snapped his fingers "You missing my burgers lately that's it, buddy boy, aren't you? C'mon, let's eat...!" He offered him the food.

"Hug!" Starsky laughed warmly. "Yeah, sure. I've been missing Anita's yummy food here, and you," he took a deep breath, "and even my life itself lately. This case you know, it is…" he tried to fill his lungs again and took another mouthful of air but he came back empty, and he scared because he started feeling, all of a sudden, dizzy again and attempted to explain his mind. "This fucking case's being taken all of me, Hug." Starsky nodded.

Huggy fixed his eyes in the immense blueness of Starsky's, like questioning him in silence and the brunet acknowledged.

They knew each other for so long.

There was a long silence until Hutch added. "Like I said, Hug!" the blond-haired detective started playing with the fork on the plate, "The problem's this case, just the case. Nothing else seems to happen, isn't it, buddy?" He looked at Starsky, suspiciously. "This case's taking all of him, and all of us!" Hutch said with a surly mood, ironically.

"Aw, Come on, Hutch…please? You're childish. Don't start again with..." Starsky began saying but didn't finish, couldn't talk.

Huggy nodded, he knew Starsky since they were two young boys, and it didn't escape to him that something was going down with him. Hutch was right. "_Something's terribly wrong with Curly… What's going on?" _He wondered.

For this reason, he started saying, started talking straight to his lifelong friend. "Curly boy, my man, I don't know what the problem with Blondie here is, but this ain't right, _YOU_ don't look good!" He took a long pause, wondering what to say without making things even worse. "You look sick, Starsky. You know that you should take care of yourself, that this way, you won't be any good for anyone, don't you? Come on, buddy, let's start eating, ok? There's no gap in the heart or the soul that some good chunks of Huggy's burgers can't fix, see your other half here?" He pointed Hutch with his head, "He's almost finished his serving, and your plate's half-full yet. You've eaten only a few morsels, buddy! Come on!"

Starsky grimaced as if he was uninterested in food.

"It's got tons of pickles Starsky," Huggy insisted, "just the way you want'em, the way you like'em!" The thin black man tried to encourage him and nudged him with his arm.

"Oh yeah, it has many, but I suppose that… I mean, that the sour taste of the pickles is kinda killing me, you know. I…" he grimaced in pain again, couldn't find the correct words, "my throat's closed, it itches and scrapes me, sorry I don't," he started coughing. "I don't feel like, I'm not able to finish eating; I'm sorry." He moved the plate toward the center of the counter with such violence that he scowled in remorse. He was full of helplessness. He was starting to apologize when he fixed his eyes on Huggy. His sight began to get distorted, alarmingly, so he pulled the napkin off of his neck and in one slight and controlled movement got down from the stool and headed straight to the restroom.

"Excuse me!" Starsky said hurriedly and disappeared into the place leaving an indifferent Hutch behind and a puzzled Huggy.

As if they were silent witnesses of the denouement.

They crossed their looks, wordless.

"See, Hug? I ain't crazy. He keeps on running off of me and of everybody else for that matter." Hutch was bereaved and dejected. "Something's happening with him, I don't know, Hug. Something's definitely wrong. He's hiding something from me". The flaxen-haired man reached his buddy arm, desperately. "Help me, Hug. Help me get to him! He doesn't seem to want to talk to me; he's distant, and I'm worried."

At the precise moment that Hutch was saying this, Leon entered The Pits, searching for the cop with his eyes among the patrons until he found him leaning on the counter.

The little snitch stayed standing still at the front door, beckoning the cop hello and waiting for his indication.

Hutch greeted him back and invited him to the customary booth with his head "Duty calls, Hug," the blonde-haired man frowned at the interruption, "Please get to Starsk, will ya? I need to know what to do with him, I _need_ to help him," he signaled the restroom with his head "and try to find out what's going on, okay?" he stood and went straight to Leon.

"Leon, It's so good to see you," Hutch said trying to sound friendly.

"You've got anything for me?" The informant pointed directly.

"I've got everything for you," Hutch said, promisingly.

And both of them disappeared into the booth at the end of the Bar, where he and Starsky usually shared space.

"_Those other times, simpler times,"_ Hutch thought.

**************************S&H****************************

When Huggy entered the restroom, he couldn't see Starsky anywhere, but he could certainly hear him. The brunet sounded like he was retching, heaving his guts. Maybe he was just coughing, but he could certainly hear him hidden in the first stall on the left.

"Starsky," Huggy asked timidly, "buddy, what's going on? Are you okay? You feeling all right?"

Nothing.

He insisted, persistently.

"Listen, buddy, I'm trying to help. You need some help there?"

Nothing.

"I'm gonna open the door, Starsky!; I'm gonna burst it down if I hafta, okay?"

No response, though he undoubtedly sounded menacing.

Surely he was going to break in if he needed to.

"Starsky?!"

Huggy shouted angrier and waited for a few seconds again.

"I'm coming, Curly!"

And he pushed the door open, he just couldn't wait anymore.

Starsky was sitting on the floor, hunched beside the white toilet. The left arm over it, his head bent down to the floor too, wheezing and panting and as white as the porcelain.

"Starsky!"

Huggy lifted the brunet's head, his eyes were closed, he was ashen white like dead, sweated all over and a trickle of blood was running down from his mouth to his chin. Correction. His cold chin and face. He was crying, the blood was mingling with his tears.

"What's going on Starsky? What's happening? Tell me, buddy, please. I'm gonna get Blondie here!"

Huggy started panicking and tried to stand up to get to Hutch, but Starsky put a firm hand on his arm. He opened his eyes and looked at him, fiercely. At first, the sick man couldn't utter a sound, he only opened his eyes in pain, desperate.

Huggy mirrored the gesture. Tried to understand beyond Starsky's eyes. "You don't want me to go'n get Hutch, buddy?"

Starsky tried to answer but it was very hard for him to talk and Huggy waited, impatiently until the moment, the cop said in a whisper, "My pocket" Starsky caught his breath "gimme the capsules, Huggy." He closed his eyes and filled his lungs; "Please? I can't breathe. I can't..."

Huggy searched for the tablets desperately and gave them to Starsky. He got out of the restroom and went to the water station in the hallway and poured him some water in a paper cup. He entered the stall again and hunched beside his friend.

"Calm down, man. Come on, buddy, take it! Lemme raise your head."

Huggy put the cup into Starsky's trembling hand, he took the water and the capsules and started shaking a little bit again and then slowly recovered. He began breathing easier and calming down too.

"I still can't move, Hug, in my jacket, gimme the inhaler. Please, put it over here."

Huggy applied the little device over his mouth; Starsky was still sitting on the tile with his eyes closed until he regained a regular breathing pattern again.

10 minutes later, Hutch wondered what was happening in the WC, neither Huggy or Starsky had left the restroom yet.

10 minutes later, Starsky was almost entirely recovered, the lack of signs of the crisis was evident.

The difference between life and death seemed to be in tiniest 400 mcg in his life, and that scared the hell out of him.

When he was recovered enough, Huggy was so incredulous about what was going on that he started asking questions, lots of questions.

"Now, are you fine? What's going on, my man?" The thin black man was a mixture of sadness and worry.

"I'm sick, Hug," The brunet sighed, "But they don't know what it is yet." Huggy helped him to stand up as he regained his strength a little. "They didn't tell me." Starsky closed his eyes. He was exhausted. "Next week, next week they're gonna gimme the diagnosis. That's everything I know for the moment so far."

Huggy released him when he thought that he was strong enough.

"Here, stay quiet and let me help you. Sick? Whaddaya mean you're sick? How's that?" Huggy couldn't react, and Starsky stumbled, trying to stay standing, the sick man instantly attempted to reach his buddy with some effort looking for support again.

"Hey, hey! I've told you, be quiet Starsky, You okay?" Huggy asked him again, with the concern imprinted on his face

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay now. I'm fine, everything's okay… Those little trashy capsules," he smiled, "they play magic in my lungs!" He took another deep breath and swallowed.

"Let's get outta here, Starsky. I'm gonna deliver you personally to Hutchy, right now. He was right, you are..."

Starsky stopped him short. He caught the lean man from his lapel with his left hand and gave him a feral look, again… like menacing. "I'm telling you, Huggy that I'm fine" He lost his grip on the astonished man. "Don't worry so much, buddy, I have this under control. I don't wanna... you know, you ain't gonna go'n tell Hutch what happened here, Okay? He'd be worried sick, and I wanna save him this uncertainty… At least until next week, when they find out what it is, okay? Then I'll tell him." Starsky could tell that Huggy wasn't so sure to play this ploy that's why he insisted. "Hey Hug, look at me. Got your word?"

"Okay, Okay! I won't tell him anything! For now! But you better use another strategy because he's very suspicious. Sooner or later, he'll find out! He even sent me here after you just to see what had happened, why you had disappeared. And past Monday? He came here and told me that you were acting weird lately, so if you don't tell him by next week what's going on with your health, then, I'll do it, okay?"

Huggy raised his eyebrows.

Starsky nodded. "Yeah, you'll do it, okay!"

Starsky knew he had to improve his strategies, his efforts. He wanted to avoid Hutch the same uncertainty that he was experiencing. In fact, the only thing that he knew is that he was sick and that same thing was slowly annihilating him. He should wait for next week and then, he would tell his buddy. After all, he knew well that he could always count with Hutch in the future after he'd go to Memorial and the doctors would tell him his diagnosis and the treatments to follow, but that would be later. For now, until next Tuesday he was going to try to prevent that Hutch realizes what was happening.

After all, it was Wednesday, and he would do it with all his being.

"…So what did they tell you, Starsky?"

Huggy's last question took him out of his reverie, and the slender man realized that the brunet had been anywhere else but in the restroom listening to him, so he searched for his friend's eyes and said, "You weren't listening to me, buddy, were you?"

The brunet shook his head no, and Huggy asked him again, "I was asking you what did they tell you, the doctors I mean; could it be something like asthma or something like that? My cousin Sterling has asthma and that attack you had, buddy, just reminded me of him."

"No, I don't know. The doctors didn't tell me anything yet so far. They must send the samples to the research laboratory, you know, and run more tests and so. But I think that they blame me for not having had a check-up in the last two years." Starsky shrugged and grimaced, "It seems that with the aftermath of Gunther's attack and all, my lungs; well, you know they took the worst part of it; they were not at their best, and now that's taken its toll. I mean they seem worse."

Huggy nodded and said, "Oh yeah, damn Gunther, it could be! After all, that you had endured, buddy! Of course, I can imagine," He patted him on the back, and Starsky raised his eyebrows wondering. "It was a hell of the aftermath, hope this doesn't mean back to square one."

Starsky approached the sink, opened the faucet and cleaned all traces of blood from his face and smiled.

"No, no Hug; no setbacks, man. It's been four complete years since the shooting, and this is not a setback. Unfortunately, this is a brand new thing."

"What do you mean?" Huggy was curious.

"Well, I don't know exactly, but I'm scared, Hug. I just wanna keep being a cop and..."

"I don't care if you're a damn cop or you are not, buddy. I want you to be okay; that's all! You got it?"

"Being a cop's all that I am," Starsky said final and melancholic "And we fought so damned hard to come back. I can't leave Hutch alone."

"You won't leave him alone, Starsky! What are you talking about?"

Starsky raised his eyes to his friend, sheep eyes, pleading eyes. "I can't run, Hug. I can't take the stairs. Damn, I can't breathe! And it's been that way since Monday, suddenly." He shook his head; he had no answers. "What kind of a partner could I be if I get sick again?

"The best! Trust me, they'll find out! They are gonna give you medicines, and you'll be okay in no time. You'll see. You keep me posted, will ya?" Huggy said encouragingly.

"Thanks, buddy. I will. I promise. Next week, when they tell me, I'll call you or come here and tell you, okay?" He smiled relieved and winked his eye.

However, since Huggy knew Starsky very well, he was suspicious, so he cast eyes upon him and warned the dark-haired man. "You better! And hey, you don't play the hero, you listen, man? If you don't tell me, I'll tell Hutch about today. You can count on that" Huggy pointed him with his finger, menacing.

Starsky smiled, "_this is just like Huggy,"_ he thought. "I can count on that, yes! Okay, buddy, okay."

They came out of the restroom talking lightly as if nothing had happened actually.

When they approached the booth in which Hutch was talking to Leon, and after the presentations had been made, Hutch didn't realize anything. He was so excited about the imminent arrest of Parry that he almost forgot the incident and Starsky was very grateful for it. He realized nothing could tarnish the new development of the case, and he was craving for that to happen.

Sometimes, he needed to forget about what was going on with his life…

**************************S&H****************************

"So? We have something"

"Buddy, couldn't be better! We know the exact day Madoc Parry will go to Central Library. We don't need to find that damned weird neighborhood." Hutch said excitedly.

"Yeah… that sounds great" Starsky said.

They knew the exact day that Madoc Parry was going to go to Central Library to return the last book he had borrowed.

It was going to be on next Monday.

The title, "Man's Search for Meaning."

Next Monday, they were going to see their faces.

Next Tuesday, Starsky was going to know the meaning of everything that was going on. 

**ACT 13 –FREEZE IN JUNE-**

Two days later it was Friday, 10th June.

The dawn of one new weekend.

A weekend in which Hutch had planned to ask Starsky to go out with him. Go for eating or go out dancing or just... go out, and sort things out between them.

To mend things.

At around 7.45, Starsky would pick Hutch up from Venice, and he would ask him.

It had been thirteen years since they shared that same routine but after their last disagreements, the blond-haired man admitted that he had felt a little bit bothersome with his dear friend. He repented that he had been a little bit pushy with him too, "_but hell,"_ he thought, "_Starsky exasperated me recently!"_ and he just couldn't handle it.

Though he loved the man more than his life, he also felt that Starsky could be a pain in the ass sometimes. And Starsky had been a pain in the ass during the past ten days; however on behalf of their lives together, he also knew that they should respect their mutual care and affection since being in the other one's space, as they had always been, was what defined them and the only way they could get over the trouble.

In fact, cherishing their story together was going to be the only way to recover, since Hutch was sure that they should start again, from the very beginning and repair every rift from the cornerstone of their friendship if that was the case. They should get over themselves and their misunderstandings and fruitless battles, which is why he was going to ask him for a weekend of joy and pleasure out to talk, only to talk.

Another solution was going to be unsuccessful and another outcome, unthinkable, since they should never be separated.

Never.

Although he realized how difficult it had been to sustain those old habits lately, he promised himself he would try. He would never give up of recovering their '_normal.'_ Their '_normal'_ was the air they breathed.

They should be together and talk if they wanted to heal since something had changed. He also knew.

It was a strange feeling, but there it was.

Nonetheless his plans, it didn't seem to work.

"How long have you been there?" Hutch opened the door with an irritating and arrogant smile on his face.

Well, at least that was what Starsky thought.

The brunet looked restless and troublesome, standing still on the doorstep with a paper bag full of donuts in his left hand and the postal mail in his right.

"An Eternity. What's that face for? What are you laughing at? I'm freezing. You, the sleeping beauty". Starsky passed next to him. Rushed next to him. He rubbed his hands and saw the towel around Hutch's waist. "I've been knocking for more than ten minutes! I was surprised you didn't answer before..." he continued saying utterly taken aback, "you were in the shower?"

"No, only I was training for the Olympics next year in the pool that I have in the greenhouse," Hutch said with irony and mocking him, "Some detective! 100,000 sperms and you were the fastest, Starsky?" He signaled to the towel slung around his hips; he had moisture in his hair too, "In case you haven't noticed my attire before, look! Of course, I was in the shower, where else could I've been?"

Starsky shrugged and shook his head. "You know, buddy," he said while he sat on the counter seemingly tired, "I like you. I have no taste at all, but I like you, Hutch. So why do you have to be this harsh with me in return, uh?" Starsky said trying to ease the tension.

"_This doesn't seem to be the best way to start" _Hutch secretly reasoned but then, he didn't fall back; he was so aggravated he couldn't manage, so he decided to cast angry eyes toward his partner and the brunet realized.

"What?" Starsky asked curiously, "Okay! I give up! Guess I did something wrong now, here you come again!" he rushed to say and mumbled in anticipation.

"Harsh? You called me harsh?" Hutch squinted in frustration. "Yes, I am. And, of course, I come again. I'll never get tired of telling you: Jog, exercise, and healthy foods in the mornings even on weekends, Starsk. I don't know why you're this surprised! I stick to my healthy routines, buddy, and then I bath, and you know it very well. I've been doing the same things since the first time we've met, so I don't understand why are you so flustered and shocked. I didn't change a bit."

"I'm not flustered neither shocked, I was just tired of being out there freezing my family jewels! That's all!" the brunet screamed.

"_Freezing your balls_..."

"Yeah, freezing my balls!"

Hutch laughed and got into his room. He picked his chambray shirt, his khaki and when he reappeared in the living room pointed at Starsky with his right index; the brunet rolled his eyes, waiting.

"_You_ are the one that's been suspiciously changed, lately…" he pricked the curly-haired man in his chest and shook his finger, accusing him and made a long pause.

_"Am I? Different?"_ Starsky asked speechlessly just with his eyes; this was an outcome he wasn't expecting.

"Of course, you are!" Hutch answered him likewise. "You're early and you are never early!"

"Well... " he tried to explain but then asked him indignantly. "What? It's 8 AM. I've been more than ten minutes outside, knocking at your door while I was freezing. In fact, we should have been already gone..." He took a glance at his watch, "I ain't seeing how the hell I can be early!" Starsky was really tired of everything too.

"Oh! Yeah? And now you wanna make me feel sorry for you?"

"Man? I've got the feeling that you just wanna fight with me! Stop it!"

"Oh, come on! I won't feel guilty about anything! It's been your M.O. for years. Less, when you're lying to me like you're doing, babe! Look at you! You aren't frozen at all, buddy. You're sweating all over! _'I am freezing!'_ \- He mimicked - Oh, Come on!". Hutch mocked him.

Starsky passed his left hand over his forehead, and then looked at his wet hand "Yeah, looks like…" His forehead was shiny with sweat. He had had a fever all night though he actually felt cold, he couldn't say, so he smiled softly and tried to disguise. "Yeah… seems it's gonna be a hot summer, uh…. I guess I am..." the dark-haired man said with concern.

"Well, Starsky, have you ever realized that it is June? 8 AM, and it's already 78°? Yeah! See? Summer's season hasn't even started yet, and since past Monday you're _delicate_ with the temperature! Tell me, what's going on?" Hutch inquired exasperated.

At that point, Starsky was tired sick with the conversation. Lately, it seemed that he was doing everything wrong to his partner, so he decided to fight fire with fire and shouted. "And what do you wanna hear, man? It's wrong if I say I'm cold, it's wrong if I say I'm hot... darn! It appears that I'm some kinda bug, lately! I'm tired of all this."

"Tired? You are the one who's tired? You keep on telling me lies, avoiding me, shutting me down and _you_ are the one who's tired?"

"Hutch, I didn't do anything today, I've just arrived at your home to pick you up like every damn day before and I'm not telling you lies, buddy. I came here at our usual time to have some breakfast with you like every other day, and you can't stop fighting me for any apparent reason. I don't realize what's going on with you, but I know what I need just now, peace and something hot. In that order. Believe it or not, I feel cold."

"Cold? As I said, you can't be cold unless you're ill. So maybe that's it! You're sick! But, who cares, doesn't it? You don't care, do you?" he made a heartfelt pause…" you better stop blaming the temperature for our trouble!"

"Our trouble? I ain't blaming anything! I'm trying to have a conversation with you! Usually, people talk about these kinds of things, the weather, the television shows, the sports, and the news… whatever." Starsky tried to sound noncommittal.

"Best friends don't need to talk about stupid things, buddy, to have a damn conversation and we certainly must have a little chat one of these days!"

"'S okay, so shoot! Let's do it, let's talk!"

Hutch didn't say a thing. Starsky rolled his eyes again, he felt exhausted; he was making his best effort not to rush and go through Venice's threshold to never get back. "Whaddaya wanna talk about then?" he burst and then calmed down and said, ironically. "Philosophy, religion? If so, go'n get a new partner. Not my cup of tea, okay? For me these things we're talking ain't stupid things, these are everyday situations, buddy, and the kind of stuff we usually talk about." Starsky said bluntly "I feel like, you're always trying to make me feel like a moron lately. That your point, uh? What do you want me to discuss? Let's do it! Come on, do it!"

Hutch didn't know what to say. He realized that this wouldn't be the best way to con his friend into a weekend together to mend things; that in fact, he was already ruining that possibility. Starsky was right that he was a real jerk lately, but his partner's behavior was far from being approachable to him so he couldn't stay silent either.

He chose to attack instead of vent his trouble anyway.

"You shouldn't tempt me, buddy. Because I definitely think that we've gotta discuss lots of things and do a lot of talking. Our relationship is sunken in lots of unanswered questions lately for me, or maybe…" the blond stopped short.

"Maybe what, Hutch?" Starsky asked him in a mix of scare and sadness.

"Perhaps our partnership's just boring lately, maybe it's boring for you." that was all that Hutch could confess; he didn't add anything else.

"Da ya think so?" the blond man didn't say anything else, and Starsky continued, "Okay. If you think so, I can't change that!" the brunet shrugged and sighed. He looked worn out and definitely dejected "I'm tired Hutch, that's all. You can believe it or not, but it's that simple. I don't know what you're expecting from me at this moment, but I'm tired, buddy, this is all that I can say; all that I can give, I'm giving everything…I don't know; I ain't sleeping well either and," Starsky felt depressed of everything.

"You haven't slept again?" Hutch asked concernedly. "This is the fifth night, Starsk! I mean five nights in a row, isn't it? And then you have to add your little getaway to Santa Barbara."

"Oh… Uh…" Starsky said elusively.

The conversation, though aggressive, seemed to have regained its normalcy, and the subjects were the same though their eyes met full of questions, and their mouths lacked answers. Hutch decided it would be great to change the subject, to lay down their arms for a moment, and he tried, he tried.

However, it seemed like all roads led to Rome.

"You want some coffee?" Hutch invited him while he grabbed the percolator.

"Yeah, I can use some, thanks! I haven't had my breakfast yet. Having a hot cup 'o Joe is good. Though it is hot out there, I feel like shivery" Starsky sat down at the table, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

"Oh, man, I knew. Just like I thought!" Hutch underestimated.

"What now?" Starsky asked inquisitively, raising his eyes to him "_Oh no, not again!"_ he thought.

"I know what is the reason you're cold, and you've been early here today then!"

"What again?" Starsky was puzzled.

"I mean, you're shivery, you're tired! And you haven't slept! If you had had a decent meal, Starsky..." the blond-haired man shook his head.

"Oh yeah, I can figure it out!" the Brunet said irksome and rolled his eyes.

"Yes! I know that you can figure it all out! Healthy food, Starsky! Look at you! You should start to eat better. Whole Grains, Lean Protein and Fruits, and Vegetables at least for breakfast, buddy. Even O.J.! Everything would be better than carrying that infectious grocery bag full of greasy donuts that you're carrying. You wouldn't feel this way if you eat healthily; and if you do that you would have been late indeed."

"I don't see the connection! But it doesn't matter 'cause I feel that you're scolding me because I'm on time now. Could be?" he chuckled and mumbled, "You're unbelievable."

"Stop teasing me, Starsky!" Hutch growled, "I'm serious here!"

"Hey, honestly, man, I don't get you! Whaddaya mean?" Starsky was completely disoriented.

"What do I mean? You unnerve me!" He talked through clenched teeth. "The preparations, I'm talking about the food's preparations!" He almost shouted, irritably. "It takes some time to cook a healthy meal, and you're lazy enough to avoid doing it! In that bag, Oh for Christ's sake! In that bag that ain't healthy food what you're carrying, Starsky! And you know it!" he scolded him.

"This is all the food I can pass down through my throat at the moment!" Starsky said surprisingly, waving the brown paper bag trying to scream with all his force. "OJ's irritating, and the flakes just scratch my throat that is; It's a - the donuts are... I - I dunno, kind of soft and they don't scrape me!" He said ruefully; he was at a loss for words.

"So you're coming down with a sore throat or the flu or something like those men at Metro at last? You kept all week trying to avoid the subject and me. You think I'm stupid?"

"Oh no, Hutch! Please? But yeah maybe… Perhaps, I never ended up feeling like crap! I dunno, I'm a little bit under the weather lately. The whole damned week has been like that. I couldn't even catch a good sleep either. And my back? It hurts like hell. It's killing me. Is that okay with you? Enough explanation, now are you satisfied?" Starsky said totally spent.

"And you still working the night shift as if nothing matters! Like everything's okay," Now Hutch sounded genuinely worried, "and worse, you're still eating that unhealthy food of yours. Listen to me, buddy" Hutch gave the curly-haired man the Hutchison's finger again "I don't care about frigging Parry right now, you hear? We'll bust him next Monday, okay? I'll call you in sick. Now!." And Hutch stood and got to the phone.

"Hutch, buddy, hey. I'm okay. Just a little sore that's all. We've been putting 18 hours per day, lately. That's all."

Hutch softened the tone, speaking to his partner so suddenly in a caring way, he could only do. "So why doncha go back home and stay put for today? Starsk, buddy, please? And no more stakeouts for a week. You should've done this on Monday. You are terrible, and worst of all you look awful, buddy!" He sounded so bamboozled, "As I said, this whole scenario makes you an irresponsible jerk."

"Me? Irresponsible? Why's that? That's a bunch of malarkey, and you know it! Why are you the one who's angry with me now? I'm not irresponsible! I've gotta work to do, and I _AM_ responsible enough of my actions, whatever it takes."

Now the cries were increasingly high again.

"Even if it takes your health and my sanity away?" Hutch shook his head, "You're childish, Starsky, and feckless besides, I'd say you lack any sense of nutritional or health awareness!"

"You the doctor! Yeah…. yeah. Maybe, okay. It's true, I'm an idiot! You satisfied? That's enough, I'm a fucking failure, you are right!" Starsky stopped talking and they stared at each other. "Hutch, don't feel like going on with this fight, okay?" He went with it, he was tired, so his unanswered face was unreadable for his partner, and that unnerved the blond-haired man even more.

"See? You ain't right, Starsky! You are not gonna argue with me about this? You accept it? Try to make your point here, c' mon!" There was a long silence again, but Starsky's sad face spoke volumes about his lack of force and the state he was in and Hutch realized, so he approached him, lovingly "Tell me, what's going on, buddy? What's that look for? Please, trust me, you okay?"

"'S nothing Hutch." He was so tired… "It's just that, sometimes I think that you can read me like a book, and it scares the hell outta me!" the brunet sighed and nodded. "That's all. I don't feel like being here like this, having this argument with you now, don't feel like arguing either in fact, lately I…I ain't feeling so swell actually" Starsky said depressed.

"Oh yeah. Of course, buddy, and that's what I'm telling you. As long as you keep on having those filthy habits of yours, you won't be healthy, and you won't feel great or swell! Or whatever idiom you'd like to use! You won't feel swell not only to sort things out with me but for nothing else! Oh My God, Starsky I've told you before, how many times? You can't eat those fatty and creepy leftovers you insist on calling food, not for breakfast, not for lunch and not for dinner either. Never! You can't go on living that uncontrolled life and sickly routine you have been living lately! You're committing suicide, buddy! You are... "Hutch shook his head "Damn you Starsky! You're one stupid dickhead! After all that we've been through…Forget about Parry please and take care of yourself!" Hutch tried to sound reasonable.

"One uncontrolled life? Sickly routine? Hey, stop it, Hutch! You're gonna gimme a headache! I'm worried about you, you see ghosts. Be careful about reading those health books you're so fond of, pal. Like Twain said you may die of a misprint. You're all wrong with me, and you know it! I'm not sloppy, I don't have an uncontrolled life! I wasn't at a disco in a lifetime, even at Huggy's… When was the last time we went there to shoot some balls and have a brew? Uh? I was at home yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before. I couldn't recall when was the last time I even had a date! No need to remind me either!"

"Why doncha try past Tuesday? Santa Barbara, remember?" Hutch added totally enraged and sarcastically

"Oh, Come on! I didn't date anyone past Tuesday! Oh!" he scowled in pain. Starsky was at a loss for words, "what could I say? I'm just… tired Hutch, I - I dunno." He felt so dejected, for a brief second, he thought about telling Hutch the truth, all the truth about what had happened on Monday and Tuesday. About his medical check in Memorial with Goodman, his fainting, about what had happened at Huggy's, his constant tiredness and lack of appetite and pains and fears, all of his fears.

Everything.

But he decided to rule that out, it was Friday, and he could still wait until Tuesday.

Tuesday was going to bring him more certainties, and he could still wait to tell Hutch what was happening, so he decided to keep on hiding.

"Guess the job is… Too much work's taking its toll, you know? It's almost killing me. I feel like I'm good for nothing!" the shorter man finally said trying to end the discussion but giving out something that was bothering him. "Oh, please Starsky be careful with the choice of words. And skip that _"literally killing you" _thing, please? Too, too many memories!"

At the moment, Hutch thought that Starsky was refueling him, and he couldn't avoid the sarcasm.

"Hey, I was referring to… Oh, Come on! I don't wanna go through memory lane, either, we both know. I just want you to stop scolding me, would you? Please? Please?" he narrowed his eyes, "Would ya please have the decency not to start preaching me and giving me all that crap? That healthy bullshit! I don't need… Wouldn't you?"

"Bullshit?" Hutch felt aghast.

"Yeah, Bullshit! That healthy jargon and you know it. What's happening to me…" Starsky felt that he couldn't sustain the lies anymore. He dropped the eyes and chose to look the other way. "What's happening to me I don't know what it is, but, believe me, I sure feel this ain't the best way to repair it. You being shit scared like this," he filled his lungs and made a long pause, it worried him how scared Hutch was; how can he avoid him the pain? "Sometimes I feel like maybe it would have been better for me to die, back in 79. I really think about it many times lately. I'm tired of everything." They fell silent for some time until Starsky asked his friend, "And what about you? Are you tired or sick of me too? Because I'm starting to get drained of myself."

Hutch was so derailed he didn't pay attention to the real meaning of Starsky's words; he couldn't accept them; he refused to take them and thought only about the emotional aspect.

"Ah, yes! Whom the gods love die young, right? As Huggy said you like to play Mr. Popularity, don't you? It would have been better for you to die that way, young and in the line of duty like a fucking saint or martyr. But what about me? You, the hero."

That hadn't been Starsky's purpose… "Oh, please! Stop it, please! listen to yourself what are you saying, and don't be sarcastic, Hutch!"

"If you don't want a sarcastic answer don't make a stupid question, Starsky. Of course, I ain't tired of you, I'll never be… but somehow I'm happy now that you've admitted it! Yes, that's all I know. You are sick of me and you ain't right. You've just said it! Something else is going on, and you know that I know, and I know that _you_ know, and I can't find out what it is, and you can't hide it anymore. Something's happening to you, and we have to find out together. As always, you and me. Otherwise, I will think that perhaps it is you who's tired of me. "

"Cool it!" Starsky regained the control almost lost with the certainty that he couldn't afford another soapy scene since he felt he would break and decided to push Hutch forward and attack... "Nothing's happening to me, and I don't deserve these reproaches. I'm not your washed-up son, some miscarriage of nature; you scold me as if I were a little kid. Why are you so ill for?"

"Ill? You, selfish prick! Assuming that I'll go on being your partner till the end of times, for as long as we're alive, – and I can say that that's what I try to achieve! You could at least pretend that you'd try to take care of yourself!" Hutch fixed his eyes into his partner. He had released his demons. "That you'd do your damn best to take care of yourself. Not that I wanna spend the rest of my life being partnered with a goddamned cripple!"

"Hutch!"

Starsky felt stuck, following his words as the astonishment left his face, and he looked into the distance with a blank expression.

"Don't Hutch me!" The flaxen-haired man said seriously. "When was the last time that you took your rest properly, uh? Did you eat healthy food? You exercised and went to see Dr. Goodman?"

"Hutch…"

Starsky was so sad and remorseful; he tried to divert his attention and grabbed him by his arm. Hutch's intuition was still too dangerous, and he was sure the blond was not prepared yet to deal again with bad news concerning his health. However, it was no use… the blond-haired man insisted.

"No, you listen to me, buddy. Look at yourself. Uh?" he made an endless pause, "'s not that everything has ended the day you ended your PT!"

To see Hutch feeling so scared was heartbreaking; his partner was worried. The fear ran through him, and Starsky was shocked. He confirmed his suspicions, "_Hutch shouldn't know anything yet."_ He stayed silent.

"You should be more careful with your health, Starsk. You're a survivor, buddy." The blond-haired man continued; he was full of love and tenderness. "And I know that it's been four years, I know. Four blessed years." Hutch closed his eyes, he felt taken aback. "But I'll be damned if you…" he was so frightened he couldn't hide it anymore, "Please Starsky! Don't do this to me! Take care of yourself, don't get sick! If something happens to you..."

The two friends hugged, "I love you, Starsky."

It was all that Hutch could say.

"I know, I know! I'm sorry, Hutch but hey, quiet. I promise. I swear I'm gonna go'n see the doctor, okay?" "_I'm sorry Hutch I have to lie like this;" _Starsky thought, "_but what else can I do? This waiting would kill ya."_

Hutch bowed his head in assumption. "Yeah… Promise me that you'll do it, okay? First thing after we arrest Parry? Please?"

"Okay," was Starsky's last response.

In fact, he wasn't lying at all.

***************** S&H*****************

"Aww. What a touching moment! This is so moving, my God! Dear! How can there be so much beauty? Thank you for your infinite mercy, God. I never thought this would happen. See their love like this in its pure essence is so disturbing and beautiful."

He was crouching behind the bushes that embellished the backyard of Venice's Place. He was patiently waiting. He needed all the information at his disposal to develop the plan precisely.

He felt like Hitler in World War II. His biggest conquest was ahead. Through the wildness of that dark and rebellious hair.

This time he did not want to follow Napoleon's footsteps.

He wouldn't fail. Not this time.

It had happened to him before.

He didn't want to be exposed to the impact of yet another failure.

This time, he would be his. All of him. Nobody and nothing would ever take him away from him. Never.

To be defeated by the indomitable pair of men or by their fancy would mean the beginning of the end of his ephemeral dream. He wouldn't accept it. He wouldn't wallow in his self-indulgence. He would go to the end, to any extent, this time; he would not do just like the mighty man did.

His circumstances were different.

They would be both of them or neither. There wouldn't be any survivors this time.

He heard the voices of the two men that were going down the stairs.

And after a while the screeching of the hot car; he couldn't let himself get nearer without being noticed, yet he couldn't manage his anxiety.

He needed to be there, putting at risk almost everything, but he didn't care.

He needed to be within reach of his fantasy.

_To be continued..._


End file.
